Construction and Operation of a
Chloride Holding Basin
M. W. JONES, Production Superintendent, West Plant
Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company
Chemical Division
Barberton,   Ohio
The city of Barberton, Ohio, was formed when the city of Akron refused
O. H. Barber the right to build a match plant inside the city limits. Being a
rugged individualist, he moved a few miles to the southwest and built his
match plant in a swamp. As the match industry prospered, the town grew with
it. In 1900, Columbia Chemical Company started manufacturing soda ash at
this location. Although no more matches are made in Barberton, the Chemical Division of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company operates a large plant, which
continues to manufacture soda ash along with caustic, chlorine, pigments,
solvents, and cement.
In order to better understand the need for a chloride holding basin, it is
necessary to review the manufacturing process for making soda ash and the
action of two agencies in the water pollution field. These two agencies are
the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, commonly referred to as
ORSANCO, and the Water Pollution Control Board in the Department of Health
of the state of Ohio. Both agencies have been very active in seeking a reasonable solution to the chloride problem.
First, let us review the history of the soda ash process as developed by
Ernest Solvay around the year 1861 in France. This process is still used in all
areas of the world today although some soda ash is now made by direct car-
bonation of caustic which is a by-product from the manufacture of electrolytic
chlorine. The process has been changed only with reference to size and efficiency of equipment during the past 100 yrs. It is truly amazing that this
process is still the most economical and best in use in the world today for
producing soda ash.
The raw materials for the Solvay soda ash process are salt (sodium chloride), coke and limestone (calcium carbonate). Since the calcium and
chloride are not in the finished product, they produce a disposal problem.
Northeastern Ohio has a layer of salt averaging about 100 ft in thickness and
and at a depth of 2, 850 ft in the Barberton area. The salt is brought to the
surface as an artificial brine by solution mining. In this method, water is
forced down one hole with sufficient pressure to raise the saturated brine to
within 250 ft of the surface where it is picked up by deep well pumps and sent
to the plant. The area also has a layer of limestone about 600 ft thick but at
a starting depth of 2, 200 ft in the area. The top 50 ft of this stone is mined
by the room and pillar method and hoisted to the surface to furnish the other
major raw materials.
In the plant, the saturated brine solution is ammoniated and carbonated
to form sodium bicarbonate which you know as baking soda. This precipitate
is filtered from the solution and then calcined to form the finished product,
soda ash, which is sodium carbonate. In order to make this process economical, the ammonia must be recovered to be used again in ammoniating the
brine.    The filtrate is sent to a distillation column where it is treated with
- 186 -