This process is known as electrolysis and using it Davy went on to isolate elemental potassium, calcium, magnesium and barium by a very similar method.
Chemistry teachers often confuse children when they tell them about chemical symbols. Whilst ones like H, N, C and O all seem perfectly logical, abbreviating sodium to Na seems counterintuitive at first. However, if we consider the word natron, we can see where the abbreviated form came from. When isolated in metallic form, silvery white sodium is a violent element, immediately oxidising upon contact with air, and violently producing hydrogen gas which may burst into flame when brought into contact with water.
It is one of the highly reactive group one elements that are named the alkali metals. Like the other alkali metals, it has a very distinctive flame test - a bright orange colour, from the D-line emission. This is something you will have seen in all built up areas in the form of street lamps, which use sodium to produce the unnatural yellow light bathing our streets. This effect was first noted in by Kirchoff and Bunsen of Bunsen Burner fame.
Almost all young chemists will have done a flame test at some point, and sodium chloride is a popular choice. Unfortunately, the intensity of the colour is such that if any of the compound is spilled into the Bunsen burner, it is cursed to burn with a blue and orange speckled flame seemingly forever.
The reaction of sodium with water is a favourite demonstration, and clips of it abound on the internet. Sodium and its compounds have applications so diverse it would be impossible to mention them all here, a couple of examples include the fact that sodium is used to cool nuclear reactors, since it won't boil as water would at the high temperatures that are reached. Sodium hydroxide can be used to remove sulfur from petrol and diesel, although the toxic soup of by-products that is formed has led to the process being outlawed in most countries.
Sodium hydroxide is also used in biodiesel manufacture, and as a key component in products that remove blockages from drains. Baking soda actually contains sodium it's in the name!
It is as an ion, however, that sodium really becomes important. An average human being has to take in around two grams of sodium a day - and virtually all of this will be taken in the form of salt in the diet. Sodium ions are used to build up electrical gradients in the firing of neurons in the brain.
This involves sodium and its big brother potassium diffusing through cell membranes. Sodium diffuses in and is pumped back out, while potassium does the reverse journey.
This can take up a huge amount of the body's energy - sometimes as much as 40 per cent. I'd like to end with a brief story which highlights the dual personality of sodium. One man bought three and a half pounds of sodium metal from the internet and spent the evening reacting it with water in various shapes and sizes whilst he and his friends watched from a safe distance. The party was apparently a success, but he doesn't suggest hosting your own.
The following day when the host came outside to check the area where he detonated the sodium was clear, he noticed that it was covered in swarms of yellow butterflies. After doing some research, he found that these butterflies had an interesting habit. The males search for sodium and gradually collect it, presenting it to their mates later as a ritual. So, that sums up the two faces of sodium.
Its violent reactive nature contrasted with its use by amorous butterflies. That was Southampton university's David Read with the two faced chemistry of sodium. Now next week, the chemical equivalent of train spotting.
It's easy to accuse the scientists who produce new, very heavy elements of being chemistry's train spotters. Just as train spotters spend hours watching for a particular locomotive so they can underline it in their book, it may seem that these chemists laboriously produce an atom or two of a superheavy element as an exercise in ticking the box. But element has provided more than one surprise, showing why such elements are well worth investigating. And to find out why element is worth the effort join Brian Clegg in next week's Chemistry in its element.
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In certain winter counties, large quantities of NaCl are used to clear the snow on highways. Paper, rubber, water softening, tanning industries are the chief consumers of NaCl.
Sodium hydroxide is largely used in the manufacture of different types of chemicals like alcohol or phenol, resorcinol , hypochlorite, phosphate, etc. A wide quantity of NaOH is used in the paper, pulp, and rayon industries. It is also used for the extraction of aluminum. It is largely used in the glass industry, paper industry, in swimming pools for maintenance pH scale.
Sodium carbonate is also used for the production of personal care products like detergents, soaps, and toothpaste. Sign in. Forgot your password? Get help. Privacy Policy. Password recovery. Learning Chemistry. Home Element Metal Sodium. Beryllium metal Beryllium is a chemical element or alkaline-earth metals of Group 2 IIA of the periodic table with the symbol Be and atomic number Redox Reactions. The sodium cation is the main extracellular outside cells cation in animals and is important for nerve function in animals.
The importance of sodium as salt in the diet was recognized well before sodium itself was understood to be an element. This recognition formed the basis of trading of salt deposits lining the Dead Sea in biblical times by the Romans. Prolonged sweating results in sodium ion loss in sweat and it is most important that the sodium ion is replaced through proper diet. Reactions of sodium as the element with air, water, halogens, acids, and bases where known.
Binary compounds with halogens known as halides , oxygen known as oxides , hydrogen known as hydrides , and other compounds of sodium where known. Bond strengths; lattice energies of sodium halides, hydrides, oxides where known ; and reduction potentials where known.
Isolation : sodium would not normally be made in the laboratory as it is so readily available commercially.
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. 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.
Periodic table shop Printable table. Sodium: the essentials. Essentials More properties
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