Sodium bicarbonate easily forms cakes during the storage and / or transport process after production, due to the influence of conditions such as humidity, temperature, compaction etc. Caking causes serious degradation of the material in the commercial value. To overcome the problem, the caking mechanism must be clarified first, and thereafter the effective treatment should be considered to avoid caking. Weak caking strength of sodium bicarbonate powder at the initial stage of caking was measured and evaluated in relation to amounts of various components and physical properties of the powder. Caking under the high humidity (RH80%) of sodium bicarbonate found to occur due to the bridging among particles during the process of changing of sodium carbonate to sodium sesquicarbonate. The caking under the conditions of low humidity (RH40%) and high temperature (40 ∼ 50 °C) however owes bridging accompanied by the change from sodium carbonate to Wegscheider's salt. Caking strengths measured for sodium bicarbonate samples with various particle sizes were correlated with contacting numbers among particles. The caking strength, BL, was found to be expressed with the equation: BL = k·Sc·F, where Sc is the contact area per unit surface area of sodium bicarbonate particles, and F is the formation quantity per the unit surface area, of the double salts such as sodium sesquicarbonate and Wegscheider's salt. We have found finally an effective method to avoid caking through the process of analyzing the caking mechanism of sodium bicarbonate.
