High-Speed Cameras Reveal Why Sodium Explodes in Water

You remember the Na demo from chemistry class : Just a small glob of the pure metallic element dropped into water do a great big newsbreak and bang . You might even retrieve your chemistry teacher ’s explanation for why . But there ’s always been a missing piece of the puzzle , which scientists have last figured outusing high - speed TV cameras .

Sodium is one of the highly responsive alkali alloy . In its unadulterated form , the soft , shiny metal reacts in weewee to take shape sodium hydroxide and hydrogen natural gas . Oh , and lots of heat — enough that the atomic number 1 gas ignites . That ’s the New York minute and eruption for you .

That ’s probably what your chemistry teacher told you , but Pavel Jungwirth of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic was puzzled by a couple more things . Only the surface of the Na reacts with water and would n’t the atomic number 1 gaseous state envelope the sodium clod and slow the reaction ? So of class , he pulledout a gamy - velocity camera . Emily Conover ofScienceexplains what happened next :

The camera captured a never - before - seen effect . Less than a millisecond after the reaction begins , tens to century ofspiky metallic element protrusions pierce the water … The spike look , the researchers deduce , because when electron flee the alloy for piss , an intense positive heraldic bearing work up up . The mutual standoff of those overconfident charges rips the alloy asunder , and it blasts outward in tiny needle . This increases the airfoil sphere of the metal in contact with water , give a vigorous response . Computer simulations do by the researchers confirm this effect , although for much smaller quantities of sodium due to the limits of calculate power .

So there you have it — a classic high school chemistry experiment ultimately explain with the help of twenty-first - 100 applied science . [ Nature ChemistryviaScience ]

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