Bicarbonate

Sodium bicarbonate is commonly known as baking soda.

Scientists wanted to see how these developing larvae were being affected by the increased acidity of the ocean water caused by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Whitman Miller — an environmental scientist and ecologist with the Smithsonian research center — says oceans normally absorb about half of the carbon dioxide that's produced by living creatures. But when excess CO₂ is pumped into the atmosphere and dissolves into seawater, that contributes to an acidification, or a lowering of the pH of the oceans. A byproduct of that process — carbonic acid — rapidly converts to carbonate and bicarbonate ions, which Miller says are corrosive to the calcium carbonate shells of oysters and other marine species.

The next question that occurs relates to the composition of this crystallized carbonate of potash, which I am induced to call bi-carbonate of potash, for the purpose of marking more decidedly the distinction between this salt and that which is commonly called a subcarbonate, and in order to refer at once to the double dose of carbonic acid contained in it.

Fans will pump air through the alkaline stream, which causes carbon dioxide to form solid calcium carbonate, the material from which seashells are formed, which will look like a fine sand, as well as dissolved bicarbonate.