------+---------------------+ |Initial composition | |of the solutions: | |grams of salt to 1000| Point.|grams of water. | +------+--------------+ | NaCl | NH_{4}HCO_{3}| ------+------+--------------+ P_{1} | 397 | 496 | -- | 351 | 446 | -- | 316 | 412 | -- | 294 | 389 | -- | 234 | 327 | ------+------+--------------+ [Transcriber's note: table continued below...] +----------------------------------+------+---------- | | | |Composition of solutions obtained:| | |in gram-equivalents per 1000 grams|U_{Na}|U_{NH_{4}} |of water. | | +----------+------+------+---------+ | | HCO_{3} | Cl | Na | NH_{4} | | +----------+------+------+---------+------+---------- | 0.92 | 6.79 | 1.44 | 6.28 | 78.8 | 85.1 | 0.99 | 6.00 | 1.34 | 5.65 | 77.7 | 82.5 | 1.07 | 5.41 | 1.27 | 5.21 | 76.4 | 79.5 | 1.12 | 5.03 | 1.23 | 4.92 | 75.5 | 75.1 | 1.30 | 4.00 | 1.16 | 4.14 | 71.0 | 68.6 +----------+------+------+---------+------+---------- As is evident from this table, diminution in the relative amount of sodium chloride exercises only a slight influence {325} on the utilization of this salt, but is accompanied by a rapid diminution of the effective transformation of the ammonium bicarbonate. So far as the efficient conversion of the sodium is concerned, we see that it reaches its maximum at the point P_{1}, and that it decreases both with increase and with decrease of the relative amount of sodium chloride employed; and faster, indeed, in the former than in the latter case. On the other hand, the effective transformation of the ammonium bicarbonate reaches its maximum at the point P_{2}, and diminishes with increase in the relative amount of ammonium bicarbonate employed. Since sodium chloride is, in comparison with ammonia--even when this is regenerated--a cheap material, it is evidently more advantageous to work with solutions which are relatively rich in sodium chloride (solutions represented by the curve P_{1}P_{2}). This fact has also been established empirically.