Ammonium bicarbonate, a compound with formula
NH₄(C(=O)OHO), also called bicarbonate of ammonia, ammonium hydrogen carbonate, hartshorn, AmBic or powdered baking ammonia, is the bicarbonate

Bicarbonate

In inorganic chemistry, bicarbonate is an intermediate form in the deprotonation of carbonic acid...

 salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

 of ammonia

Ammonia

Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...

.

Ammonium bicarbonate is produced in the process that also leads to ammonium carbonate

Ammonium carbonate

Ammonium carbonate is a commercial salt with the chemical formula 2CO3. It is used when crushed as a smelling salt. It can be crushed when needed in order to revive someone who has fainted...

. Commercial ammonium carbonate was formerly known as sal volatile or salt of hartshorn

Hartshorn

Harts' horns, are the horns of the male red deer. Various substances were made from the shavings of the animals' horns.The oil of hartshorn is a crude animal oil obtained from the destructive distillation of the deers' bones or horns....

 and was formerly obtained by the dry distillation of nitrogenous organic matter such as hair, horn, decomposed urine, etc., but is now obtained by heating a mixture of sal ammoniac

Sal ammoniac

Sal ammoniac is a rare mineral composed of ammonium chloride, NH4Cl. It forms colorless to white to yellow-brown crystals in the isometric-hexoctahedral class. It has very poor cleavage and a brittle to conchoidal fracture. It is quite soft, with a Mohs hardness of 1.5 to 2, and has a low specific...

, or ammonium sulfate and chalk

Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....

, to redness in iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 retorts, the vapours being condensed in lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

en receivers.