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It's hydrogen that explodes, not sodium. Sodium just forms NaOH on contact with water. Did _you_ skip them classes?
by lstodd 3y ago
It'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).