Sodium, Chemical Element - Overview, Discovery and naming, Physical properties, Chemical properties, Occurrence in nature, Isotopes. Photo by: Jiri Hera Overview Most people have never seen sodium metal.
But it is almost impossible not to see many compounds of sodium every day. Ordinary table salt, baking soda, baking powder, household lye (such as Drano), soaps and detergents, aspirin and other drugs, and countless other consumer products are sodium products. Sodium is a member of the alkali metals family. SYMBOL Na FAMILY Group 1 (IA) Alkali metal PRONUNCIATION SO-dee-um Compounds of sodium have been known, of course, throughout human history.
Discovery and naming Sodium carbonate, or soda (Na 2 CO 3 ), was probably the sodium compound best known to ancient peoples. This explains why glass was one of the first chemical products made by humans. The Egyptians called soda natron. The name sodium probably originated from an Arabic word suda, meaning "headache. " In the early 1800s, Davy found a way to extract a number of active elements from their compounds. Physical properties Chemical properties Isotopes Extraction. Periodic Table. (Promo) You're listening to Chemistry in its element brought to you by Chemistry World, the magazine of the Royal Society of Chemistry (End promo) Meera Senthilingam This week an essential element with a split personality.
Here's David Read. David Read Sodium, like most elements in the periodic table could be said to have a dual personality. As such sodium is found naturally only in compounds and never as the free element. Aside from being an essential nutrient, the story of man and sodium is said to begin all the way back in the time of the Pharaohs in Ancient Egypt, with the first recorded mention of a sodium compound in the form of hieroglyphics. In medieval Europe, however, sodium carbonate was also used as a cure for headaches, and so took the name sodanum, from the Arabic suda, meaning headache.
Chemistry teachers often confuse children when they tell them about chemical symbols. Baking soda actually contains sodium (it's in the name!) Brian Clegg. What is Sodium? Periodic Table of the Elements. Sodium: historical information Sodium was discovered by Sir Humphrey Davy at 1807 in England.
Origin of name: from the English word "soda" (the origin of the symbol Na comes from the Latin word "natrium"). Until the 18th century no distinction was made between potassium and sodium. This was because early chemists did not recognise that "vegetable alkali" (K2CO3, potassium carbonate, coming from deposits in the earth) and "mineral alkali" (Na2CO3, sodium carbonate, derived from wood ashes) are distinct from each other. Eventually a distinction was made. Sodium was first isolated in 1807 by Sir Humphry Davy, who made it by the electrolysis of very dry molten sodium hydroxide, NaOH. Sodium is one of the elements which has an alchemical symbol, shown below (alchemy is an ancient pursuit concerned with, for instance, the transformation of other metals into gold). alt="alchemical symbol of sodium">
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