Heavy Metal, Baby!

Note: ***CHEMISTRY WEEK*** is coming to a close. (Aww shucks! I have about 3 more posts to do! I may post 1 next week as a part of my normal posts)There's a chemistry lesson given in this post. I am double posting today, about a personal "experience", so a post will follow this one sometime today.

One of the more "interesting" experiences I've ever had in my scientific career is working with moisture- and air-sensitive materials. The most craziest thing about Organic chemistry is that air and water are enemy #1. I've also had experience with Organometallic chemisty, which is essentially organic chemistry combined with inorganic chemistry (think of inorganic chemistry as "metal" chemistry if you want).

Metals that we are familiar with, and use on a daily basis: iron, copper, nickel, silver, gold, platinum, mercury...

A couple of metals that I've worked with on a regular basis are sodium and lithium. You will see these below in the periodic table in the 1st column in yellow. (Na = sodium; Li = lithium).
Now, I don't plan to talk much about the periodic table. Just know that all of the elements are arranged by "family" and that all elements in a column is related. I'm just interested in that FIRST column that is in bright yellow above in the periodic table, where it begins with "H" (hydrogen), and continues with "Na" (sodium), "K" (potassium), and so on...

Now sodium ("Na") is a familiar metal... We are always told that we shouldn't have too much sodium in our diet. But we don't "eat" sodium metal. We eat Sodium chloride, that is, SALT.

Sodium chloride, in itself, is safe, to the point where we can eat it.

Here's the kicker: Sodium by itself is dangerous. Chlorine by itself is dangerous.

Chlorine, "Cl" above (element 17 in the periodic table above), is not a metal, a green poisonous gas. This is the reason for all those warning labels on the back of household cleaning products which say "DO NOT mix bleach". Because mixing the cleaning product with bleach may cause a reaction to produce chlorine gas. And you don't wanna be breathing that in, babes!

Now sodium "Na" metal is a whole nother animal. It is also extremely dangerous.

Sodium melts and catches fire when it comes in contact with water.

You may say... "Yeah, right". Well check out the following pictures.

Well, I found a few pictures for you.

Here is a demonstration of someone dropping a chunk of sodium with water. (I actually think this chunk is TOO BIG to be fooling with, but whatever. They worked it out.) Note: That is not me dropping that chunk into that water. My guess is that it's some adventurous white man, lol.

Once the chunk of sodium is dropped in the water, it begins to melt and bubble. The white stuff that is produced is sodium hydroxide, a compound real similar to lye.
Well, the reaction is exothermic. That means it gives off A LOT of heat. Hydrogen gas is produce, and the heat causes the hydrogen gas to ignite.
And ignition means "FIRE", babes.

GLORY!!!

It burns itself out pretty quickly, so that's all good.

But the problem becomes, as you go DOWN that first row in a periodic table, the fires produced when the metals react with water become more violent, more explosive in nature.

So, "Li" kind of just sizzles and skittles around on the surface of the water. There is some fire, but not bad.

"Na", Sodium metal does what it does, as seen in the pictures above.

"K", Potassium metal, gets a little worse. Let's just say, dude better stand his a$$ back a couple of feet.

"Rb", Rubidium metal, gives much worse fires, and an explosion to boot. Dude better drop a chunk of rubidium in the water and run for the frickin' heels.

"Cs", Cesium metal, well, it gives a crazy explosion. And dude used a chunk of sodium above. How about he better not do that? How about he better use the a piece of cesium no bigger than a tear drop?

If a tear drop-size piece of cesium is dropped in that bowl of water above, the explosion would've been so forceful as to break the glass.

"Fr", Francium metal, the last metal in the family... well, we won't talk about that. You can't even order francium metal, and if you do, somebody is looking at you REAL hard. You probably gotta sign all kinds of paperwork.

Why?

Because you're getting over into hydrogen bomb making issues then. And you don't want the Feds on you about THAT.

Nope. Not a good look seeing your behind face down on the ground in handcuffs. Or, it really ain't a a good look seeing you walking around with severe burns and no appendages because you had the notion to drop a piece of francium in some water, man.

For this reason, the metals just described must be store in non-air atmospheres (like, under nitrogen or argon gas) or stored under mineral oil. The big thing is to keep air away from these metals. Sodium "Na" metal will only corrode a little when it stands in air. You can actually see it go from shiny to white, if you leave a chunk just sitting on the counter. But as you go down the periodic row of that family, let's just say, you better not let it even come in contact with air, because the water vapor in the air is enough to cause ignition...

Well, your friendly neighborhood Oldgirl, has had or been around some "metal misadventures". (Yeah, that's what we will call them.)

LadyLee has even caught fire! (Imagine that!)

So... stay tuned for that... I may not get to it this week, but I am double-posting today, with a post leading up to that. (Don't worry, it is a short story). I can mix my "fire" posts in with next weeks normal post...

So stay tuned for my next post later today.

Until then, I found a very accurate youtube video which describes and demonstrates what i just talked about very nicely. These fellas use, metals dropped in bathtubs to uh, get there point across.