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Sodium is a chemical element; it has symbol Na (from Neo-Latin natrium) and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable isotope is 23 Na. The free metal does not occur in nature and must be prepared from compounds.
Sodium compounds. Sodium atoms have 11 electrons, one more than the stable configuration of the noble gas neon. As a result, sodium usually forms ionic compounds involving the Na + cation. [1] Sodium is a reactive alkali metal and is much more stable in ionic compounds. It can also form intermetallic compounds and organosodium compounds.
While most metals form arsenides, only the alkali and alkaline earth metals form mostly ionic arsenides. The structure of Na 3 As is complex with unusually short Na–Na distances of 328–330 pm which are shorter than in sodium metal, and this indicates that even with these electropositive metals the bonding cannot be straightforwardly ionic. [10]
The commercially available "sodium hydroxide" is often this monohydrate, and published data may refer to it instead of the anhydrous compound. As one of the simplest hydroxides, sodium hydroxide is frequently used alongside neutral water and acidic hydrochloric acid to demonstrate the pH scale to chemistry students.
The Castner process for production of sodium metal was introduced in 1888 by Hamilton Castner. At that time (prior to the introduction in the same year of the Hall-Héroult process) the primary use for sodium metal was as a reducing agent to produce aluminium from its purified ores. The Castner process reduced the cost of producing sodium in ...
Isotopes of sodium. Na is the only stable (and the only primordial) isotope. It is considered a monoisotopic element and it has a standard atomic weight of 22.989 769 28(2). Sodium has two radioactive cosmogenic isotopes (22. Na, with a half-life of 14.9560 (15) h). With the exception of those two isotopes, all other isotopes have half-lives ...
e. The chemical elements can be broadly divided into metals, metalloids, and nonmetals according to their shared physical and chemical properties. All elemental metals have a shiny appearance (at least when freshly polished); are good conductors of heat and electricity; form alloys with other metallic elements; and have at least one basic oxide.
Diagram of a downs cell electrolyzing molten NaCl into chlorine gas and sodium metal. Downs' process is an electrochemical method for the commercial preparation of metallic sodium, in which molten NaCl is electrolyzed in a special apparatus called the Downs cell. The Downs cell was invented in 1923 (patented: 1924) by the American chemist James ...
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