Talk:Sodium

Article changed over to Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements format by maveric149. Elementbox converted 19:18, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC) by Femto. Previous revision was that of 05:04, 22 Jun 2005

Information Sources

Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Sodium. Other information was obtained from the sources listed on the main page but was reformatted and converted into SI units.

Talk

I don't see much reason to keep Temp around; does anyone else? -- LDC

In this case I would say no -- I worked on it 3 hours straight instead of my usual habit of speading the work over a few days. If it bugs you that it exists then delete it. --mav

I just wanted to make sure there wasn't some reason to keep it that I hadn't thought of. If no one objects for a while, I will.

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Anything on sodium as it relates to nutrition? Actually, there are many things on sodium that relate to nutrition. One example is your soda drink. sodium is used in cooking items in both salt and baking soda. Most nutrional values of sodium always contain sodium used as a mixture. Sodium is used in medicine, the compound that is used in medicine is nitrous oxide, which it is also widely used as an anesthetic during surgery, in which it is injected into the patient to produce unconsciousness for 1 to 3 minutes, only because nitrous oxide has a property to escape the blood stream fast.

Nitrous oxide has nothing to do with sodium. N2O is nitrogen compound and it is a GAS and it is not injected. Dr Vyas

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In the formula for a hydrate, I don't think a subscript asterisk is the proper symbol between the compound and its water component. Isn't the proper symbol a centered dot, like the · you get with ·? Or some more distinctive bullet symbol? Furthermore, I think that using a wiki link on just that symbol is silly, making it look like the symbol is an underlined subscript asterisk. Wouldn't following the formula with something like "(see [[hydrate]])" make more sense? Gene Nygaard 00:44, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It sure would make a lot more sense. By the way, to be more HTML 4.0 compatible, you should use • instead of ·.

Sodium (English, soda) has long been recognized in compounds...

This is clumsy. Any better offers? Rich Farmbrough 17:39, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Cost?

Well back then the cost was lower, for certain types of Sodium, but what is the price of Pure, 100%, Sodium today? exaclty my question what is the cost today i mean i really dont care what it was "back then" sorry but i dont.

Oxidation number

Isn't the oxidation number of sodium +1? not +2?

Yes, it is. Duly edited. Pedriana 20:42, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Values

someone has put thermal expansion in and in some others too, yet you have not put the starting temp or size of sample or method used (24.221.73.69)

Values are as referenced by chemical elements data references. Thermal expansion of an isotropic solid is a material property that is adequately described by a single coefficient for a given temperature. The coefficient of linear thermal expansion α=71 µm/(m·K) is a mathematical factor that is independent of the size of sample. Femto 1 July 2005 10:05 (UTC)

Page looks horrible in IE

File:Napage.jpg

Darrien, this is what the page looks like in IE with normal settings now: not good..

Fixed for now? Since this isn't the only Wikipedia article with an infobox, do we have technical guidelines for the left-aligned-image-flow-around issue? Femto 4 July 2005 11:46 (UTC)

Minerals of sodium

Sodium chloride, better known as common salt, is the most common compound of sodium, but sodium occurs in many other minerals, such as amphibole, cryolite, halite, soda niter and zeolite

This sentence is a bit misleading since halite is the mineral form of NaCl. Also this sentence implies that NaCl is a mineral on its own. Fornadan (t) 22:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

isn't the laten name for sodium nadium? how is it spelled anyway?

The Latin name for sodium is natrium.

As is the international name, making it very common, so it's best to remember it too KrisCrash (talk) 17:11, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Insoluble salts?

Are there any (practically) insoluble salts of sodium? If not, why not? --njh 07:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe all group 1 salts are soluble

Sodium Metaphosphate is insoluble, but is soluble in mineral acids, Potassium Chloride or Ammonium Chloride solution. As far as other group 1 elements are concerned; Potassium Chlorate and Potassium Perchlorate have low solubility...

From jtbaker.com and my Handbook of Chemistry by Lange the solubilties are:

Potassium Chlorate 3.3g/100g water at 0°, 7g at 20°C, 57g at 100°C

Potassium Perchlorate 0.75g/100g water at 0°, 1.5g at 21°C, 21.8g at 100°C Scot.parker 20:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

NaCl as heat transfer?

"NaCl, a compound of sodium ions and chloride ions, is an important heat transfer material." Is this true? It seems that it wouldn't conduct heat very well unless it was molten, which takes about 800˚C. Perhaps NaCl is being confused with sodium metal. Can anyone confirm this?

Removed until sourced. Femto 10:55, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Even if correct, it seems the food industry use is far more important than it's heat transfer characteristics. Stifynsemons 13:46, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

More commonly Na or Na/K is used for heat transfer in car valves and nuclear reactors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajhalls (talk • contribs) 15:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Use of sodium in organic chemistry

"Sodium in its metallic form is an essential component in the making of esters and in the manufacture of organic compounds."

This is completely incorrect. Sodium (or its alloys) may be used as reducing agents or catalysts, but they are not "essential" in making organic compounds. Esters are made by reacting an alcohol with and acid in the presence of a strong acid; there is no sodium, metallic or as a compound, in esters, nor is it used in their production process. Until someone can come up with a good summary of the use of sodium in organic chemistry, I am removing this sentence. --71.227.190.111 00:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Not too familar with Wikipedia

But the yellow sodium light emitted from the telescope in the image from the SOR, Starfire Optical Range, is not from a dye laser. I tried to edit the page, it seemed to work at work, but at home I don't see the same edits.

The light source is a FASOR, which stands for Frequency Addition Source of Optical Radiation. It is two single mode, single frequency IR solid state lasers, 1.064 and 1.319 microns that are sum frequency mixed in an LBO crystal within a doubly resonant cavity.

It seems to be okay for me. Try dumping your .tmp files. Your system may be giving you a photo with an old caption. I've been fooled that way before. SBHarris 07:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Repetitive

In the first paragraph the description of sodium is repeated in the second paragragh (now under Notable charactaristics). Also the word 'metal' seems to be overly repeated. For example under 'Notable charactaristics' it says, "Like the other alkali metals, sodium metal is a soft, light-weight, silvery white, reactive metal. Well the rest of the paragragh goes on like that. I would leave the word metal in the expression, 'alkali metal' and remove it every where else in the paragraph. For example from the first paragragh...

Sodium is a chemical element that has been assigned the symbol Na (Natrium in Latin) and the atomic number 11. Sodium is a soft, silvery, very reactive element and is a member of the alkali metals within ‘group 1’ (formally known as ‘group IA’) of the periodic table. Sodium readily oxidizes in air necessitating storage in an inert environment.

Notable Characteristics

Compared with the other alkali metals, sodium is generally more reactive than lithium but less so than potassium in accordance with periodic law; for example, their reaction in water, chlorine gas, etc. Owing to it’s extreme reactivity it is found in nature only as a compound and never as the free element. It burns in air producing sodium oxide and/or sodium peroxide but will not form the nitride as does lithium. The density of Sodium is less than that of water with which it reacts exothermically (produces heat). Small pea sized pieces will swim around the surface of water until they are consumed by it whereas large pieces will explode. The reaction with water produces very caustic sodium hydroxide and highly flammable hydrogen gas. In any case metallic sodium is considered an extreme hazard and will cause severe skin and eye injury if suitable precautions are not observed.

Scot.parker 18:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

All sodium salts without exception are soluble in water?

This statement is not true and needs to be removed.

• How is it not true? Am I missing something here? Taekwondo_Tiger_Girl_22 04:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, go back and read the article.Scot.parker 14:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Just Wondering...

If you wanted to show your friends how reactive sodium really is, how much is a safe amount to use? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Frogger22 (talk • contribs) 04:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC).

About the size of your thumb into a bucket of water will work. It will fizz for about 5 seconds then explode. Be careful because it will give off a cloud of Sodium Hydroxide.

No, far too big, thumb-sized would be a dangerous, explosive quantity. The reaction is highly unpredictable because it is influenced by shaping and particle movement and the explosive reaction does not scale smoothly with size. People have lost their eyes and gotten very serious chemical burns playing with sodium and water. Don't try it at all. The biggest sized shred of sodium I've ever seen or heard about being safely dropped into water is smaller than pea-sized and everyone, always, wears eye protection. All told, this is not the place to talk about doing this and I say, it's dangerous, don't do it. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Isn't it cool that when you eat salt, that you are really eating two harmful substances, sodium and chlorine? Ha! I never thought about that until a few days ago... Taekwondo_Tiger_Girl_22

I disagree with Gwen. I have done demonstrations many many times with pieces up to 5 pounds. See photo for some of my work. Working with sodium involves practice, and proper safety procedures. Guns and knives are similar items in that when used with stupidity or just ignorance people can get hurt or killed. You can however do fairly large ones safely, my personal favorite is about 1 ounce with water added from 30-40 feet away with a hose. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Large_Sodium_Explosion.jpg

Reactivity Li > Na > K

I'm highly suspicious of this sentence:

"Compared with the other alkali metals, sodium is generally more reactive than lithium and less so than potassium,"

My understanding is that reactivity decreases as you go down the periodic table.

As I recall, the ionization energy of Li is greater than Na which is greater than K, but not being a chemist, somebody more knowledgeable than me should verify this.

I think the sentence ought to read: "Compared with the other alkali metals, sodium is generally less reactive than lithium and more so than potassium,"

Clemwang 23:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure I can find a reference for the statement tonight. When I do, I will include the reference in the text, with rewriting of the sentence as necessary. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 23:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think based on the above section entitled "Repetitive", the sentence was worded about the way I suggested. I think somebody accidently changed the meaning of the sentence without intending to while removing the repetition. I'm going to fix it the way I think is correct (and corresponds to the older edit.

Clemwang 23:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The truth about this is more complicated than expected. Reduction potential in aquia are Li=-3.02V, Na=-2.71V, K=-2.92V, Rb=-2.93V, Cs=-2.92. So energy release reacting with water is greatest for Li, least for Na, and in between for the other two. But energy release for direct combination with Cl, Br, or I is Li < Na < K < Rb < Cs. But combination with F is the opposite. So is the formation of M₂O energy. So there is no unified trend. There are also solubility trends between Na and K depending upon the strength of the anion. But there is no way to sum all this up in one or two sentences. So your original suspicion was warranted. I haven't decided what to do about it yet. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 02:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Emission Spectrum

Why is there no information on the emission spectrum of Na? Especially considering sodium's use in astronomy, and, well, anything that uses the "Sodium Line" because it's so obvious and well known... MyOwnLittlWorld 00:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The Spectrum seems wrong to mee too. Compare: http://www.seilnacht.com/versuche/tnlinien.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.79.28.108 (talk) 19:07, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Remove the image for now. Seeking a replacement. Materialscientist (talk) 00:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

manufacture of sodium

Since the melting point of sodium hydrogencarbonate(bicarbonate) is 50°C and it will decompose at 60°C, why don't we make sodium by electrolysis when the bicarbonate is melted? This will be cheaper and easier than the method mentioned in the article.Superdvd 11:30, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know where you got your info about NaHCO₃ melting at 50°C. Try melting it for yourself. All you need is some baking soda, a metal tablespoon, and a mug of hot water to gently heat the spoon. You'll see for yourself how good your info is. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 13:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I had got that info from wiki.........but it is now deleted.lolSuperdvd 09:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Atomic Spectrum Lines

I liked this new section up to and including, "This fine structure results from a spin-orbit interaction of the valence electron in the 3p electronic state." After that, the discussion of hyperfine orbital states becomes too arcane for an article like this. There are very few readers who will have a clue what the orbital symbols mean, much less how they result in the splitting of the D lines. An article like this shouldn't be assuming detailed knowledge of quantum physics. Simply explaining that there are subtle effects that further split the D1 and D2 lines into hyperfine lines ought to be sufficient. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 00:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Sodium in atmosphere of Mercury

The following section was added, which I have moved here for rewriting and citation. Would this be more helpful in Atmosphere_of_Mercury? Please comment? Gwen Gale (talk) 19:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Sodium Atmospheres

One little known fact is that the planet Mercury has a Sodium atmosphere. This was determined by ground based observations. Apparently there are at least two possible sources for this phenomenon wind sputtering or photodesorption of the surface of this planet. Mercury's sodium atmosphere is dynamic and constantly being replenished. Europa also seems to have an extended sodium atmosphere. Even the Earth's Moon is reported to have a tenuous Sodium Atmosphere.

is it a really good idea to put this information where only hard core wikipedians will have the chance to read and update this? This does need updating and rewriting, mainly by researcher in this hot topic. Placing this out of sight and out of mind is not the way to do this. unsigned comment by User:Kevindavid 14:51, 18 February 2008

Seems like an interesting topic, but it would have to be written more clearly and with sources. --Itub (talk) 15:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Erroneous Electronic Configuration??

The Electronic Configuration for Sodium is wrong on the page. It on the RHS of the page in the electronic config. it says: Electron configuration [Ne] 3s1 What has Neon got do with Sodium? It should instead be: 1s2 2s2p6 3s1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.241.48.51 (talk) 09:13, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It means it has the electron configuration of neon plus 3s1. It is a standard abbreviation. See noble gas#Noble_gas_notation. --Itub (talk) 09:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Sodium gamma ray

There is a gamma ray of 511keV emitted by Na 22 as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geoffmthomas (talk • contribs) 10:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Isolation with carbon

I've put a ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.›  in the process for making Sodium metal using carbon, said to have been done in the 1800's. I'd like to see the reference, because that doesn't seem too likely to me, given that, historically, Sir Humphry Davy isolated sodium and other elements with electrolysis. If he could have used carbon, wouldn't he have tried it that way first?64.252.67.170 (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

It is a bit surprising, given that general chemistry textbooks and teachers tend to drill into our brains the idea that nearly nothing reduces sodium compounds except electricity. But it is true, according to Kirk-Othmer's Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. I don't know the exact conditions of this process, but it is possible that they weren't available to Davy or that he just didn't think of it. Heating to 1100 degrees Celsius is a bit extreme, and presumably this must be done under vacuum or inert atmosphere, because otherwise the sodium would get re-oxidized by air. --Itub (talk) 12:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey thanks, I will have to check that reference sometime.64.252.67.170 (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Carbon is being used as the electrode. It gets slowly eaten away by the process, which is typically termed a Down's Cell http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/602/616516/Media_Assets/Chapter18/Text_Images/FG18_16.JPG) While salt melts at 801 degrees, there is never a reason to go much higher, however, there are ways to drop this down a few hundred degrees or more to make it simpler. Having personally made a small scale cell, I know a little about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.223.63.4 (talk) 15:29, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding "Most people consume far more sodium than is physiologically needed."

Blanket statement? Plus I think this may apply mostly to Western culture. Japanese food in particular tends to be much less salty, though I don't have a source for my claim either so I wasn't sure if it was worth editing. Supersack (talk) 08:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Chemical Properties!

Flammability: reactivity: Important chemical reactions: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.202.240.117 (talk) 15:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Biology

Anybody mind if I spit out the biological role? There's a lot more to say about it, but it's hard to expand in its current location. --Arcadian (talk) 15:14, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Ahem, I noticed you deleted the material http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sodium&diff=286845700&oldid=286659666, but where did you PUT it? "Split out" in order to expand doesn't mean "delete and leave no summary behind." I didn't notice all the missing stuff until trying to fill in the big gap. I kept thinking: "didn't I do all this before...?" I finally looked on the web and found that somebody had won a contest for best answers on a sodium related question by referring to the biology of sodium section here--- now gone. Rummaging around, I see you "took" it. SBHarris 07:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

The author of the papers is the author of the section in the wikipedia article:

Recently, it was predicted and then (in the same work) verified that at pressures arouns 200 GPa sodium becomes a transparent insulator . Furthermore, the band gap is predicted to increase with pressure (from ~2 eV at 200 GPa to over 6 eV at 600 GPa) ., suggesting that at pressures above 300 GPa sodium will be colorless and transparent like window glass. Transparent sodium can be described as an "electride" - i.e. an ordered "compound" formed by ionic cores and strongly localized interstitial electron pairs.

We have to decide If this is notable enough to keep.--Stone (talk) 20:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Transparent metal??

This is an extremely significant piece of research. It suggests that other compounds may change from opaque to transparent, or from insulators to conductors, when extreme pressures alter their crystal structures. I am going to add it to the article (with another reference), so readers can be alerted of this research and can follow up if they desire.Raymondwinn (talk) 17:34, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

A discussion is due before questioning this well-thought decision (to move that material out of the article). That high pressure changes virtually any material from insulator to conductor and otherwise is a well known fact in high pressure research. In fact, high-pressure data and structures are omitted from most summaries of material properties, simply because they are too exotic and far from usual applications. Just to give you and example, every material has at least several high-pressure phases, which are only mentioned if they are metastable (diamond, c-BN, etc.), i.e. that releasing the pressure preserves the new phase. This is not the case here. Materialscientist (talk) 22:52, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I have moved the whole section "Phase behavior under pressure" (below) out of the article because it is not ready to go there: (i) not in history; (ii) phrasing "a possible explanation ..." or "several odd structures" does not sound right for an encyclopedia (iii) "One free electron" is called "free" because it is spread all over the solid. Saying that it can be pushed to 10 core (i.e. well localized) electrons does not sound reasonable. (iv) "At around 100 GPa, sodium will melt at near room temperature .." - that was not a room temperature sodium, but another, rather complex crystalline phase. Another huge question mark there is that there was no "melting" per se. The authors saw that sodium lost order upon compression. This could well be amorphization (they should have cooled the cell to demonstrate that something is crystallizing upon freezing) Materialscientist (talk) 00:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Is this just about sodium? A general property demonstrated on one element isn't about sodium per se. --Vuo (talk) 19:00, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Phase behavior under pressure (moved from the article)

Under extreme pressure, sodium departs from common melting behavior. Most materials require higher temperatures to melt under pressure than they do at normal atmospheric pressure. This is because they expand on melting due to looser molecular packing in the liquid, and thus pressure forces equilibrium in the direction of the denser solid phase.

At a pressure of 30 GPa (300,000 times sea level atmospheric pressure), the melting temperature of sodium begins to drop. At around 100 GPa, sodium will melt at near room temperature. A possible explanation for the aberrant behavior of sodium is that this element has one free electron that is pushed closer to the other 10 electrons when placed under pressure, forcing interactions that are not normally present. While under pressure, solid sodium assumes several odd crystal structures suggesting that the liquid might have unusual properties such as superconduction or superfluidity.

At a pressure of 200 GPa (2,000,000 times sea level atmospheric pressure), sodium first turns black and then becomes transparent, and it loses its ability to transmit electricity. Its usual crystalline structure (body-centered cubic packing) is altered into a six-coordinate, highly-distorted bouble-hexagonal close-packed structure.

"Natrium" used in Japanese food products?

Received gifts of Japanese instant soups. Instead having 500 - 1000mg of "salt", one has, for example 2.5g of "natrium" (in Japanese language). I wonder if there is any difference health-wise in the two dietary uses of Na. Would love to hear from those who know. 98.248.198.214 (talk) 18:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Just a thought: Japanese pay much attention to accuracy. I imagine they analyzed the product for Na content (rather than just wrote the amount of salt that was put in) and therefore honestly specified the measured value. Don't know the actual procedure though. Materialscientist (talk) 00:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

This would be the "dietary sodium" content. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Intake Recommendations

The 500mg per day recommendation is outdated. Please see government of Canada website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.226.147.128 (talk) 01:24, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Updated, thank you. Materialscientist (talk) 01:50, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

All of the hyperlinks - now shown in RED - in this paragraph are an absurdity

All of the hyperlinks - now shown in RED in the article - in this paragraph are an absurdity:

"There are other insoluble sodium salts such as sodium bismuthate NaBiO3, sodium octamolybdate Na2Mo8O25• 4H2O, sodium thioplatinate Na4Pt3S6, abd sodium uranate Na2UO4. Sodium meta-antimonate's 2NaSbO3•7H2O solubility is 0.3 g/L as is the pyro form Na2H2Sb2O7•H2O of this salt. Sodium metaphosphate NaPO3 has a soluble and an insoluble form."

They are absurdities because those chemical compounds are not important, they are neither useful nor common, and what they are is laboratory curiosities. They do not currently have articles of their own in the Wikipedia -- and nor do they need articles about them.

There are "billions & billions" of chemical compounds, and the only ones that need Wikipedia articles are the common ones, the useful ones, and the important ones (especially in life). Thus adenine, uracil, and the other components of DNA and RNA, and the common amino acids are important ones, and they need Wikipedia articles of their own, and articles on such compounds as potassium chloride and trinitrotoluene are important because these are useful compounds.98.81.17.215 (talk) 23:41, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the compounds are there not because they are important, but because they are very unusual (billions and billions of sodium compounds are soluble in water, and only a handful are not). Nevertheless, it may be time for a stand alone WP:list article of Sodium compounds relatively insoluble in water, and a simple link to it in the sodium main article. SBHarris 04:25, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

nuclear reactor cooling

I strongly disagree with the wording of this paragraph. "Other uses" is not the place to talk about accidents or undocumented nuclear safety. I would just mention some examples of sodium cooled reactors like Monju (where the mentioned accident happened) in Japan or Phénix and Superphénix in France. --Zakatan (talk) 12:46, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Occurences

I changed "different ['different what']" to "different minerals". I also changed "salt" to "halite". Eldin raigmore (talk) 20:48, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

That was because of 19:49, 16 December 2011‎ 66.219.235.208 (talk)‎ (36,866 bytes) (→Occurence: needs clarification, [Sodium] is found in many different, .... (different what?)). Eldin raigmore (talk) 21:00, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Biological role of sodium

There is an error in the section on the biological role of sodium.

It states that the DRI for sodium is 1.5g per day. That is the DRI for those over 50, or with medical conditions such as hypertension. The DRI for the population that doesn't fall into these categories is 2.3g per day. See reference 49

It is also stated that the average American consumes 2.3g of sodium per day. The average amount is actually 3.4g per day. See reference 49