All this effort...

[Ast]

just for salt and whipped cream?

Or did I get something wrong?

[bloodeye]

It's not the results, it's how much effort you put into getting them.... besides, you know what sort of chemicles they put into comercial 'salt' these days? Safer to just make your own.

[Ostracee]

It's not the results, it's how much effort you put into getting them.... besides, you know what sort of chemicles they put into comercial 'salt' these days? Safer to just make your own.

Unless you manage to trap some chlorine gas in the crystals...

[bloodeye]

That's a risk I'm willing to take. Besides, easy enough to run a purification process.

[kiga]

Have any of you ever witnessed this reaction (metallic sodium and chlorine gas)? I have not, but I would imagine it would be quite impressive.

I have witnessed a block of sodium going up in flame, and then exploding into a certain river in Boston. That's Na + H2O -> NaOH + H, at least, though there are other reactions that I'm sure the remaining H got involved in (especially in the presence of air).

I have not witnessed NaOH + HCl -> NaCl + H2O in large quantities and I believe it when I'm told it's dangerous. Acid-base reactions can be very exothermic.

Also, I believe misting H2O through chlorine gas results in HCl. So all three reactions are exothermic.

Put them together, and Na + Cl2 -> NaCl has GOT to pack a whallop.

The only question, then, is the kinetics: how fast does the reaction happen? With metallic sodium, the reaction can only take place on the surface, and so that probably slows things down, at least at first. But how much? Of course you need a chamber where you can observe these things and make sure the chlorine doesn't destroy the chamber. I forget whether chlorine gas can eat at glass. If so, what else would work?

I can imagine Gav wanting to ask these questions.

Kevin

[bloodeye]

Cl(g) can destroy pretty much whatever it happens to feel like. Seem to recall the various trains that carry Chlorine around are metal, but I don't know what the inside is coated with. You can contain it in glass, but keep it relitively cool and dark. Light sparks a reaction. Remember watching some video about it where they turned on a light and the jar blew up.

Think was the same video that saw a Cl(g) + Na(s) reaction. Wasn't explosive, just had a white hot glowing coal of metal with a little jet of gas on it... but probally could have been explosive under other conditions.

[Gav]

I don't actually know what would happen if you dropped a chuck of sodium metal into a can of chlorine gas, but this strip was based on a story told to me back when I was a freshman by my Chemistry 1B professor.

He had a bunch of these unbelievable stories which made me wonder, if they were true, how he was still alive today. He said when he was twelve, he decided he wanted to make salt from scratch and that his older sister swiped a chuck of sodium from her chemistry class for him, and that he made his own chlorine, "as any rambunctious 12-year-old knows how," by electrolizing household bleach. He said there was a small explosion (or maybe just a "bright flash") and he and the ceiling were soon covered by white crystals.

His story went on to say that he still had chlorine left over and he decided he wanted to find out what it smelled like...

Seconds later, he was half-blind and passing out, stumbling about the basement looking for his dad's book on poisons. Apparently, the antidote to chlorine inhalation is inhaling alcohol fumes. So he stumbled upstairs, broke into his parents' liquor cabinet, dosed his shirt in vodka, and passed out with it draped over his face.

Then his parents walked in 15 minutes later and his mom screamed, "My Lord, our son's an alcoholic!" to which he came to, and said, "No no! I just inhaled chlorine gas!"

Not sure where that one rates on the BS meter, but it has always left me wondering what would really happen if you tried to make salt "from scratch."

Uh, maybe I should say "Don't try this at home," lest I inadvertently kill someone with this strip.

[CodeGuy]

I doubt the strip is dangerous. I think there's an implied "don't try this at home" on everything Gav says.

[bloodeye]

Gav, Danny, King Luca.... pretty much every member of the cast has an implied 'do not imitate' label on them....