Definition of "carbonate" [car•bon•ate]

• To charge (a beverage, for example) with carbon dioxide gas. (verb-transitive)
• To burn to carbon; carbonize. (verb-transitive)
• To change into a carbonate. (verb-transitive)
• A salt or an ester of an carbonic acid. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "At a recent meeting of the Geological Society of London that was devoted to thinking about the Anthropocene and its geological record, Toby Tyrrell of the University of Southampton pointed out that pale carbonate sediments-limestones, chalks and the like-cannot be laid down below what is called a "carbonate compensation depth"."
• "This bonds to the CO2 to form droplets of sodium carbonate, which is collected at the bottom of the towers and passed onto subsequent stages that separate and collect the CO2."
• "Mr. WILKER: What the oysters seem to be doing is using a little bit of protein, or a small amount of an organic component, but have the majority of the material, 90 percent or so, be actually a hard, inorganic calcium carbonate, which is kind of like chalk."