Making Soda Ash in a Kitchen Pot

[Miami Reef]

It’s commonly suggested that we need an oven to convert Sodium bicarbonate into Sodium carbonate, but is it the only way?

Since overheating isn’t a concern, could we cook it in a pot?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Any way of heating it should work. Heating a dry pot could damage the pot, but the carbonate needs to very hot to decompose to sodium oxide, which is still ok to use.

 

[Miami Reef]

How hot are we talking for it to become sodium oxide?

Can heating a dry stainless steel pot cause damage?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

My father melted at least two teapots by leaving them heating, but they may not have been stainless. Lol

The often quoted decomposition temp of sodium carbonate to sodium oxide is about 850 deg C.