Alkali Metals - reaction with water
Posted: February 19th, 2016, 11:41 pm
I wanted to mention this ages ago, but only just remembered to do so now. It is to do with the reaction between alkali metals in water.
I studied this in A Level (or was it GCSE?) Chemistry - I think most classes would have seen some of the reactions - but here is a video showing how each alkali metal reacts in water. (By the way, in my school, we only did up to potassium, as the rest were too reactive, and not readily available.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uixxJtJPVXk
In case you were wondering: the Group 1 metals (alkali metals, so lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, cesium and francium) are all very reactive - and each subsequent reaction is more reactive than the previous reaction. Lithium is the least reactive (but still pretty reactive), sodium is more reactive than lithium, and so on. Look at how explosive the Cesium reaction is!
Note: it is not possible to react francium with water, because francium is radioactive, and has a short half life (half life being the time taken for half of the atoms to decay) - but imagine what the reaction would be like if it was possible!
I studied this in A Level (or was it GCSE?) Chemistry - I think most classes would have seen some of the reactions - but here is a video showing how each alkali metal reacts in water. (By the way, in my school, we only did up to potassium, as the rest were too reactive, and not readily available.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uixxJtJPVXk
In case you were wondering: the Group 1 metals (alkali metals, so lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, cesium and francium) are all very reactive - and each subsequent reaction is more reactive than the previous reaction. Lithium is the least reactive (but still pretty reactive), sodium is more reactive than lithium, and so on. Look at how explosive the Cesium reaction is!
Note: it is not possible to react francium with water, because francium is radioactive, and has a short half life (half life being the time taken for half of the atoms to decay) - but imagine what the reaction would be like if it was possible!
