[MR] Quick Lime (Lye)

[Towey, Brian]

Dear Walter,

I apologize if any of my earlier post did not qualify as "real chemistry."

Of course salt does not burn.  And, sodium carbonate is not made
commercially today by heating sodium chloride with other compounds.  I was
only speculating whether a medieval chemist might have synthesized it
crudely by heating or burning a bunch of raw materials, including sea salt.
Perhaps there was no such synthesis, and sodium carbonate was only mined or
extracted from wood ash as you suggest.

Can you please explain the medieval procedure for separating sodium
carbonate from sodium hydroxide in wood ash liquor?  And, are you sure that
mining and ash were the only sources in period?

Yours,

Charles Fleming
mka Brian Towey