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The essentials

Description 

Here is a brief description of sodium.

• Standard state: solid at 298 K
• Colour: silvery white
• Classification: Metallic
• Availability:

Soap is generally a sodium salt of fatty acids. The importance of common salt to animal nutrition has been recognized since prehistoric times. The most common compound is sodium chloride, (table salt).

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The picture above shows the result of adding different metal salts to a burning reaction mixture of potassium chlorate and sucrose. The red colour originates from strontium sulphate. The orange/yellow colour originates from sodium chloride. The green colour originates from barium chlorate. The blue colour originates from copper (I) chloride. The lilac colour that should be evident from the potassium chlorate is washed out by the other colours, all of which are more intense. Do not attempt this reaction unless you are a professionally qualified chemist and you have carried out a legally satisfactory hazard assessment. Improperly done, this reaction is dangerous! Select a movie icon to see flame burning in from right to left.

Sodium salts impart a characteristic orange/yellow colour to flames. The picture above shows the colour arising from adding common salt (NaCl) to a burning mixture of potassium chlorate and sucrose. Do not attempt this reaction unless you are a professionally qualified chemist and you have carried out a legally satisfactory hazard assessment.

Sodium is a Group 1 element (or IA in older labelling styles). Group 1 elements are often referred to as the "alkali metals". The chemistry of sodium is dominated by the +1 ion Na⁺.

Nearing Zero cartoon included by kind permission of Nick Kim.

Isolation

Sodium would not normally be made in the laboratory as it is so readily available commercially. All syntheses require an electrolytic step as it is so difficult to add an electron to the poorly electronegative sodium ion Na⁺.

Sodium is present as salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) in huge quantities in underground deposits (salt mines) and seawater and other natural waters. It is easily recovered as a solid by drying.

Sodium chloride has a high melting point (> 800°C) meaning that it sould be expensive to melt it in order to carry out the electrolysis. However a mixture of NaCl (40%) and calcium chloride, CaCl₂ (60%) melts at about 580°C and so much less energy and so expense is required for the electrolysis.

cathode: Na⁺(l) + e^- → Na (l)

anode: Cl^-(l) → ¹/₂Cl₂ (g) + e^-

The electrolysis is carried out as a melt in a "Downs cell". In practice, the electrolysis process produces calcium metal as well but this is solidified in a collection pipe and returned back to the melt.

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