It is one of the important chemical raw materials used in making chemicals, cleaning agents, detergents, and also used in photography and pharmaceutical products.

Most of it is used in industry, and a small part is for civilian use. Among industrial soda ash, mainly light industry, building materials and chemical industry account for about 2/3; followed by metallurgy, textile, petroleum, national defense, medicine and other industries. The glass industry is the largest consumer of soda ash and consumes 0.2 tons of soda ash per ton of glass. The chemical industry is used in making water glass, sodium dichromate, sodium nitrate, sodium fluoride, baking soda, borax, trisodium phosphate and the like. The metallurgical industry is used as a smelting flux, flotation agent for beneficiation, steelmaking and smelting as a desulfurizer. The printing and dyeing industry is used as a water softener. The tanning industry uses degreased, neutralized chrome tanned leather for raw hides and improves the alkalinity of chrome tannins. It is also used to produce synthetic detergent additives such as sodium tripolyphosphate and other sodium phosphates. Food grade soda ash is used to produce monosodium glutamate, pasta, etc.