Note 26 — Chapter XII · SODIUM

Löwig gave a method of preparing sodium hydroxide from sodium carbonate by heating it to a dull red heat with an excess of ferric oxide. Carbonic anhydride is given off, and warm water extracts the caustic soda from the remaining mass. This reaction, as experiment shows, proceeds very easily, and is an example of contact action similar to that of ferric oxide on the decomposition of potassium chlorate. The reason of this may be that a small quantity of the sodium carbonate enters into double decomposition with the ferric oxide, and the ferric carbonate produced is decomposed into carbonic anhydride and ferric oxide, the action of which is renewed. Similar explanations expressing the reason for a reaction really adds but little to that elementary conception of contact which, according to my opinion, consists in the change of motion of the atoms in the molecules under the influence of the substance in contact. In order to represent this clearly it is sufficient, for instance, to imagine that in the sodium carbonate the elements CO2 move in a circle round the elements Na2O, but at the points of contact with Fe2O3 the motion becomes elliptic with a long axis, and at some distance from Na2O the elements of CO2 are parted, not having the faculty of attaching themselves to Fe2O3.