Reactions with water
Sodium
Sodium has a very
exothermic reaction with cold water producing hydrogen and a colourless
solution of sodium hydroxide.
Magnesium
Magnesium has a very
slight reaction with cold water, but burns in steam.
A very clean coil of
magnesium dropped into cold water eventually gets covered in small bubbles of
hydrogen which float it to the surface. Magnesium hydroxide is formed as a very
thin layer on the magnesium and this tends to stop the reaction.
Magnesium burns in steam
with its typical white flame to produce white magnesium oxide and hydrogen.
No comments:
Post a Comment