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posted by martyb on Friday March 01 2019, @04:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the cue-a-new-generation-of-experimenters dept.

Back in 1947, the US government had some surplus metallic sodium they were trying to dispose of, but they were unable to arrange transportation to deliver it to any potential buyers. Where "some" amounted to 20 tons of the highly reactive material. So they did the obvious thing. Well, obvious back then; today there would likely be environmental impact statements, OSHA regulations, etc. What they did is dumped it in dead -- contained no living creatures -- Lake Lenore in the state of Washington. It was a simple matter of rolling these 3,500 pound (1,600 kg) ingots down the steep sides and into the lake. To say the results were spectacular would be an understatement as sodium reacts violently with water. It is an exothermic reaction which liberates sodium hydroxide and copious amounts of hydrogen. Ka-Boom! This is covered nicely in the Hackaday story story at Hackaday which contains a link to this newsreel video on YouTube.

That sets the stage for a more recent development pertaining to how to actually make metallic sodium. The conventional process to create sodium metal is to heat sodium chloride (table salt) to about 800°C and then run a current in the kiloamp range through it. Again at Hackaday, they present a short piece entitled Common Chemicals Combine To Make Metallic Sodium:

Thankfully, there’s now a more approachable method courtesy of this clever chemical hack that makes metallic sodium in quantity without using electrolysis. [NurdRage], aka [Dr. N. Butyl Lithium], has developed a process to extract metallic sodium from sodium hydroxide. In fact, everything [NurdRage] used to make the large slugs of sodium is easily and cheaply available – NaOH from drain cleaner, magnesium from fire starters, and mineral oil to keep things calm. The reaction requires an unusual catalyst – menthol – which is easily obtained online. He also gave the reaction a jump-start with a small amount of sodium metal, which can be produced by the lower-yielding but far more spectacular thermochemical dioxane method; lithium harvested from old batteries can be substituted in a pinch. The reaction will require a great deal of care to make sure nothing goes wrong, but in the end, sizable chunks of the soft, gray metal are produced at phenomenal yields of 90% and more. The video [YouTube link] walks you through the whole process.

Caution: concentrated sodium hydroxide (aka lye) is terribly nasty if it gets in your eyes never mind on any other sensitive parts of your body (such as skin); do not attempt without a full face mask and other protective equipment.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Friday March 01 2019, @06:19AM (1 child)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Friday March 01 2019, @06:19AM (#808592) Journal

    Getting high.. with the metallic sodium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=088uKVGC6Eg [youtube.com]

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
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  • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday March 01 2019, @04:40PM

    by fritsd (4586) on Friday March 01 2019, @04:40PM (#808777) Journal

    no gloves tsk tsk

    no security glasses either, I suspect