Baking Soda
Handy to Know | Part 1
What is Baking Soda?
Baking soda is not as the name would first suggest the act of baking with a soda such as Coca Cola. That is a story for another day and a whole different blog post).
No, Baking Soda otherwise known as bicarbonate of soda or bicarb, is a white crystalline alkali or salt. This means that it reacts with acids as opposed to being an acid. It has a fancy chemical name NaHCO3 which is just by the by.
I did some research to find out more about bicarb. I found that more than 50 million years ago salt lakes around the world evaporated and formed deposits of trona. Trona is a rock that’s processed into soda ash. Soda ash in turn can be processed to make baking soda.
Where does most of the world’s trona come from?
The world’s largest trona deposit is in Wyoming in the United States. My friend Google tells me that in 2015 Wyoming produced 17 millions tons of the mineral for export. That humble little box of baking soda you find in the baking aisle of your local supermarket may have had its origins half a world away.
Trona is found at the following places:
- Owens Lake and Searles Lake in California;
- The Green River formation of Wyoming and Utah;
- The Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana; and
- The Nile Valley in Egypt.
How is baking soda made?
Sodium bicarbonate is formed by mixing carbon, sodium, hydrogen and oxygen molecules. It can also be made from soda ash, also known as sodium carbonate.
Soda ash is obtained in one of two ways: it can be manufactured by passing carbon dioxide and ammonia through a concentrated solution of sodium chloride (table salt) or it can be found in the form of trona.
Now the science lesson is over…
In Part 2 I will take you through some of the best uses for this little powdery super-hero in our kitchen. Follow this link to view the post Baking Soda in the Kitchen.
