A Brief History of Soda Ash

Soda ash (sodium carbonate), hailed as the "mother of chemicals," is widely used in many core fields such as glass and new energy. Its industrial development history is not only a history of global chemical technology iteration but also a history of the rise of China's national industry from follower to leader.

The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century spurred the modern soda ash industry: In 1791, the Leblanc process in France pioneered a new path for soda ash production; in 1861, the Solvay process in Belgium became mainstream due to its large-scale advantages, but it suffered from low raw material utilization and significant pollution from waste residue and waste liquid. In the early 20th century, the Chinese soda ash market was monopolized by foreign manufacturers. Patriotic industrialist Fan Xudong, together with Hou Debang, overcame these difficulties, producing 99% pure "Red Triangle" soda ash in 1926, breaking the Western monopoly. In 1943, they invented the Hou's process, increasing salt utilization from 70% to over 98%, a major innovation in the history of world soda ash production.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's soda ash industry has achieved leapfrog development, with its production capacity increasing from 88,000 tons at the beginning of the PRC to become the world's largest in 2003, and exceeding 32 million tons in 2020. Simultaneously, China's natural soda ash industry has rapidly emerged, progressing through the 1.0 era of alkali field sun-drying technology, the 2.0 era of complex component separation technology, and the 3.0 era marked by the commissioning of the Alashan 10-million-ton-level project in 2025. It is projected that by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China's annual soda ash production capacity using the natural soda ash process will exceed 20 million tons, with a market share exceeding 60%.

Today, China's soda ash industry has completed its transformation from a global follower to a leader, and is now iterating and upgrading towards the 4.0 era of digitalization and green development, contributing Chinese solutions to the sustainable development of the global soda ash industry.