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Castner Process
The Castner process is a process for manufacturing sodium metal by electrolysis of molten sodium hydroxide at approximately 330 °C. Below that temperature, the melt would solidify; above that temperature, the molten sodium would start to dissolve in the melt. History The Castner process for production of sodium metal was introduced in 1888 by Hamilton Castner. At that time (prior to the introduction in the same year of the Hall-Héroult process) the primary use for sodium metal was as a reducing agent to produce aluminium from its purified ores. The Castner process reduced the cost of producing sodium in comparison to the old method of reducing sodium carbonate at high temperature using carbon. This in turn reduced the cost of producing aluminium, although the reduction-by-sodium method still could not compete with Hall-Héroult. The Castner process continued nevertheless due to Castner's finding new markets for sodium. In 1926, the Downs cell replaced the Castner process. Proc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sodium
Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable isotope is 23Na. The free metal does not occur in nature, and must be prepared from compounds. Sodium is the sixth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and exists in numerous minerals such as feldspars, sodalite, and halite (NaCl). Many salts of sodium are highly water-soluble: sodium ions have been leached by the action of water from the Earth's minerals over eons, and thus sodium and chlorine are the most common dissolved elements by weight in the oceans. Sodium was first isolated by Humphry Davy in 1807 by the electrolysis of sodium hydroxide. Among many other useful sodium compounds, sodium hydroxide (lye) is used in soap manufacture, and sodium chloride (edible salt) is a de-icing agent and a nutrient for animals including h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electrolysis
In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of elements from naturally occurring sources such as ores using an electrolytic cell. The voltage that is needed for electrolysis to occur is called the decomposition potential. The word "lysis" means to separate or break, so in terms, electrolysis would mean "breakdown via electricity". Etymology The word "electrolysis" was introduced by Michael Faraday in 1834, using the Greek words "amber", which since the 17th century was associated with electrical phenomena, and ' meaning "dissolution". Nevertheless, electrolysis, as a tool to study chemical reactions and obtain pure elements, precedes the coinage of the term and formal description by Faraday. History In the early nineteenth century, William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle sought to further Volt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sodium Hydroxide
Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye and caustic soda, is an inorganic compound with the formula NaOH. It is a white solid ionic compound consisting of sodium cations and hydroxide anions . Sodium hydroxide is a highly caustic base and alkali that decomposes proteins at ordinary ambient temperatures and may cause severe chemical burns. It is highly soluble in water, and readily absorbs moisture and carbon dioxide from the air. It forms a series of hydrates . The monohydrate crystallizes from water solutions between 12.3 and 61.8 °C. The commercially available "sodium hydroxide" is often this monohydrate, and published data may refer to it instead of the anhydrous compound. As one of the simplest hydroxides, sodium hydroxide is frequently used alongside neutral water and acidic hydrochloric acid to demonstrate the pH scale to chemistry students. Sodium hydroxide is used in many industries: in the manufacture of pulp and paper, textiles, drinking water, soaps and deterge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamilton Castner
Hamilton Young Castner (September 11, 1858 – October 11, 1899) was an American industrial chemist. Biography He was born in Brooklyn, New York and educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, then at the Columbia University School of Mines. He left without a degree and in 1879 joined his brother, E. B. Castner, as a consulting chemist. He left this business around 1884 and worked to devise a process for manufacturing aluminium by reducing aluminium chloride with sodium. Sodium was relatively expensive at that time and Castner devised a process of producing it by the reduction of caustic soda with carbon, a much cheaper process. He failed to interest American industrialists and travelled to England in 1886. () In 1887 his process helped to lead to the formation of the Aluminium Company in England which produced aluminium of high purity. However, in 1889 it was rendered obsolete by a much cheaper electrochemical process. Castner's only asset then was his cheap sodium an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reducing Agent
In chemistry, a reducing agent (also known as a reductant, reducer, or electron donor) is a chemical species that "donates" an electron to an (called the , , , or ). Examples of substances that are commonly reducing agents include the Earth metals, formic acid, oxalic acid, and sulfite compounds. In their pre-reaction states, reducers have extra electrons (that is, they are by themselves reduced) and oxidizers lack electrons (that is, they are by themselves oxidized). This is commonly expressed in terms of their oxidation states. An agent's oxidation state describes its degree of loss of electrons, where the higher the oxidation state then the fewer electrons it has. So initially, prior to the reaction, a reducing agent is typically in one of its lower possible oxidation states; its oxidation state increases during the reaction while that of the oxidizer decreases. Thus in a redox reaction, the agent whose oxidation state increases, that "loses/Electron donor, donates electrons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has a great affinity towards oxygen, and forms a protective layer of oxide on the surface when exposed to air. Aluminium visually resembles silver, both in its color and in its great ability to reflect light. It is soft, non-magnetic and ductile. It has one stable isotope, 27Al; this isotope is very common, making aluminium the twelfth most common element in the Universe. The radioactivity of 26Al is used in radiodating. Chemically, aluminium is a post-transition metal in the boron group; as is common for the group, aluminium forms compounds primarily in the +3 oxidation state. The aluminium cation Al3+ is small and highly charged; as such, it is polarizing, and bonds aluminium forms tend towards covalency. The strong affinity tow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sodium Carbonate
Sodium carbonate, , (also known as washing soda, soda ash and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula Na2CO3 and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield moderately alkaline solutions in water. Historically, it was extracted from the ashes of plants growing in sodium-rich soils. Because the ashes of these sodium-rich plants were noticeably different from ashes of wood (once used to produce potash), sodium carbonate became known as "soda ash". It is produced in large quantities from sodium chloride and limestone by the Solvay process. Hydrates Sodium carbonate is obtained as three hydrates and as the anhydrous salt: * sodium carbonate decahydrate (natron), Na2CO3·10H2O, which readily efflorescence, effloresces to form the monohydrate. * sodium carbonate heptahydrate (not known in mineral form), Na2CO3·7H2O. * sodium carbonate monohydrate (thermonatrite), Na2CO3·H2O. Also known as crystal carbonate. * anhydrous sodium ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with other atoms when it forms chemical compounds or molecules. Description The combining capacity, or affinity of an ...—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent bond, covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon makes up only about 0.025 percent of Earth's crust. Three Isotopes of carbon, isotopes occur naturally, Carbon-12, C and Carbon-13, C being stable, while Carbon-14, C is a radionuclide, decaying with a half-life of about 5,730 years. Carbon is one of the Timeline of chemical element discoveries#Ancient discoveries, few elements known since antiquity. Carbon is the 15th Abundance of elements in Earth's crust, most abundant element in the Earth's crust, and the Abundance of the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, and highly combustible. Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, constituting roughly 75% of all normal matter.However, most of the universe's mass is not in the form of baryons or chemical elements. See dark matter and dark energy. Stars such as the Sun are mainly composed of hydrogen in the plasma state. Most of the hydrogen on Earth exists in molecular forms such as water and organic compounds. For the most common isotope of hydrogen (symbol 1H) each atom has one proton, one electron, and no neutrons. In the early universe, the formation of protons, the nuclei of hydrogen, occurred during the first second after the Big Bang. The emergence of neutral hydrogen atoms throughout the universe occurred about 370,000 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
