Salts That Act as Bases

Some salts that do not contain hydroxide ion produce this ion in solution. The most widely used of these is sodium carbonate, Na2C03, which is commonly known as soda ash. Millions of pounds of soda ash are produced each year for the removal of hardness from boiler water, for the treatment of waste add, and for many other industrial pro cesses. Sodium carbonate reacts in water to produce hydroxide ion  

such as from hydrochloric acid, is already present in the water, sodium carbonate reacts with it as follows  

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