Sodium

Joe Morales
March 12, 2015
Ms Muiz
Chemistry Class

Discovery
Sodium was discovered near the end of 1806
and beginning of 1807 when Sir Humphry
Davy found a way to extract it from its
compound. Sodium is an element which
dates back to the Egyptians who used
several compound variations of it. The
reason that it is claimed to have been
discovered in 1807 is because sodium bonds
very strongly to other common elements.
Davy is credited to its discovery because of
has capability to separate it from Sodiums
common compounds. Sodiums name
originated from the Latin word Natrium and
eventually took the Arabis work Suda as the
root to its name. Suda basically means
headache in the Arabic language.

Chemical and Physical Properties

Sodium exists as all 3 states of matter, but is found in
solid state when it is room temperature.
It is an Alkali metal and because of this it has a shiny
appearance .
An interesting chemical property of Sodium is that it
reacts very violently when brought to the presence of
water.
Sodium is a metal, but it has an interesting physical
property that allows it to be bent and shaped.
It is a very good conductor of electricity.

Sodium is a very soft metal

Sodiums boiling point occurs at
883C which is extremely hot!
Its melting point is found at 97.5C
When Sodium comes into contact
with the air, it loses it shine and
turns into an opaque grey colour.

Sodium In Our World

Sodium is naturally found usually in salt deposits and
is easily extracted. It is the 6th most abundant
element on Earth and the second most common
element dissolved in sea water. It is so abundant that
we extract nearly 200 million tons of it each and
every single year in the form of Sodium salts. An
interesting fact about Sodium is that is only found
naturally in a combined state.

The Uses of Sodium

Sodium is majorly used in common
table salt which we usually
consume on a daily basis. The
majority of food that we consume
already has sodium in them .
Many cleaning chemicals contain
Sodium Hydroxide compounds
which aid in the cleaning
process.
Sodium is very widely used in
nuclear reactor plants as a
form of cooling the reactant to
a manageable temperature.

Sodium in conclusion is one

the most important elements
known to man and is also one
the most common elements
used by us

Without Sodium our bodies

would not be in balance and
we would suffer from
illnesses. As we can see, it
is entirely necessary to our
lives in order to keep
healthy even though too
much of it is bad.