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Did you skip middle school chemistry classes? Common salt is NaCl, not metallic sodium. The later (needed for batteries) explodes in contact with water.
by fooker 3y ago
Did you skip middle school chemistry classes?
Common salt is NaCl, not metallic sodium.
The later (needed for batteries) explodes in contact with water.
- lstodd 3y agoIt's hydrogen that explodes, not sodium. Sodium just forms NaOH on contact with water. Did _you_ skip them classes?
- Terr_ 3y ago> Did _you_ skip them classes? That's crossing the line into hostile pedantry--there's no reason to get nitpicky over which step in the reaction chain is most-to-blame for someone losing their eyebrows. Fooker is still correct that (A) the metallic-vs-salt difference is very important and (B) bringing those metals together with water can cause explosions.
- nvy 3y agoThe reaction is exothermic and also produces H2 gas. If the metal ignites it can also ignite the H2 gas which gets spicy in a hurry, so it's reasonable for someone to interpret that as the metal exploding.
- kaashif 3y agoSodium definitely does explode on contact with water, although not as violently as potassium. Here's one of the search results for "sodium explosion": https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.16771 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.16771 Unless your comment is about how an explosion needs a pressure wave and sodium is just really burning hydrogen or something.
- gus_massa 3y agoThe article in Nature is about a paper by Thunderf00t (Phil Mason). He published the result in Nature Chemistry and also made a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmlAYnFF_s8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmlAYnFF_s8 (the video has a nice balance, it's technical but not too technical).
- margalabargala 3y agoThese batteries do not contain metallic sodium. It contains sodium ions, in solution. Hence the name "sodium ion batteries"