Sodium Metal Gone Wild

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I decided to go ahead with my experiment. I filmed this from my safety box and kept a good distance from this with my goggles and gloves. Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55nJOAsx ... annel_page

haha why does it bubble, smoke, and burn?????

Always good to see people actually experimenting. Keep it up!

You never know what you may learn.

And remember, in the pursuit of science, human safety is of no consequence!

What else have you tried doing, I have seen sodium metal react with water. But I do not like it as I am well aware that the reaction has great potential to bite back.

By the way if you are planning on trying the experiment with potassium metal then take great care, do not try to cut old potassium metal as it can form a peroxide crust on the surface. Also K metal and water is much more nasty than either Li or Na and water.

QuantumCowboy is wrong, your health and safety should be viewed as the most important thing. I am well aware of many people in science who have damaged themselves, do not let yourself be the next one.

_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

Here is a film about potassium, this is something not to ever try at home !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPdevJTGAYY&NR=1

_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

try burning magnesium - the purple stuff. it sparks!

I have never tried sodium and bleach, is the bleach in question a chlorine bleach such as NaOCl ?

I suspect that NaOCl solution will not react much faster with sodium than plain water, but I have never tried it out. The sodium will react with the water to form solvated electrons, these will then react with protons to form hydrogen gas. The same reaction occurs when you put sodium into liquid ammonia but the lifetime of the solvated electron is much much longer in that solvent.

The interesting thing is that the solvated electron is deep blue in colour, but due to the short lifetime in water you can not see it. I would love to have eyes that worked on the nanosecond timescale, I would be able to see so many more things happening.

If you check the data obtained by pulse radiolysis or other high speed experiments you could find out what the solvated electrons do to OCl anions. I do not know what happens off the top of my head so I would have to check the literature.

I think that after a while that flames and bangs become less interesting, I have found the calmer slower reactions in chemistry to be more interesting.

_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

Yes it was Chlorine Bleach that I threw it in.

Well it was interesting thank you for the video. Now I'm tempted to get into this stuff myself.

which would probably result in salt? (note- not a chemist, but NaCl and all, y'know... Plus a lot of Oxygen (probably used in the fire, etc)