Question

What are the properties of sodium ?

Answer 1

At room temperature, sodium metal is soft enough that it can be cut with a knife. In air, the bright silvery luster of freshly exposed sodium will rapidly tarnish. The density of alkali metals generally increases with increasing atomic number, but sodium is denser than potassium. Sodium is a fairly good conductor of heat.

Sodium changes color at high pressures, turning black at 1.5 megabar, becoming a red transparent substance at 1.9 megabar, and is predicted to become clearly transparent at 3 megabar. The high pressure allotropes are insulators and take the form of sodium electride.Compared with other alkali metals, sodium is generally less reactive than potassium and more reactive than lithium,[4] in accordance with "periodic law": for example, their reaction in water, chlorine gas, etc.

Sodium reacts exothermically with water: small pea-sized pieces will bounce across the surface of the water until they are consumed by it, whereas large pieces will explode. While sodium reacts with water at room temperature, the sodium piece melts with the heat of the reaction to form a sphere, if the reacting sodium piece is large enough. The reaction with water produces very caustic sodium hydroxide (lye) and highly flammable hydrogen gas. These are extreme hazards. When burned in air, sodium forms sodium peroxide Na2O2, or with limited oxygen, sodium oxide Na2O (unlike lithium, the nitride is not formed). If burned in oxygen under pressure, sodium superoxide NaO2 is produced

Answer 2

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