Energy & Green Tech
Anybody who has ever enjoyed fresh crab legs or lobster tails can attest to how difficult it is to get through their tough shells. But instead of just throwing them away, researchers are "upcycling" these shells into porous, ...
Mar 13, 2023
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190
Energy & Green Tech
As industries across the country begin the transition to renewable energy, the demand for batteries, and therefore lithium, is projected to rise dramatically. But, with much of the global lithium supply located outside of ...
Aug 17, 2022
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99
Energy & Green Tech
Sodium-ion batteries have been touted as a sustainable alternative to lithium-ion batteries because they are powered by a more abundant natural resource. However, sodium-ion batteries have hit a significant snag: the cathodes ...
May 1, 2023
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103
Hi Tech & Innovation
Slipping and sliding on snowy or icy roads is dangerous. Salt and sand help melt ice or provide traction, but excessive use is bad for the environment. And sometimes, a surprise storm can blow through before these materials ...
Feb 16, 2023
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47
Energy & Green Tech
A team of researchers designed and manufactured a new sodium-ion conductor for solid-state sodium-ion batteries that is stable when incorporated into higher-voltage oxide cathodes. This new solid electrolyte could dramatically ...
Feb 23, 2021
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132
Energy & Green Tech
Scientists have known since the 1950s that it is theoretically possible to generate electricity through the movement of water in locations where seawater and river water meet. This type of technology is called osmotic power ...
Jul 21, 2022
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69
Energy & Green Tech
A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in Australia, the U.S. and China has found that a perfluoropolyether-based electrolyte can be used to make stable sodium metal batteries. They have published their ...
Energy & Green Tech
An ingredient in many toothpastes is sodium fluoride, a compound of fluorine. It is added to protect teeth against decay. But compounds containing fluorine have other practical uses that might surprise you. Scientists at ...
Jun 28, 2023
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Energy & Green Tech
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have designed a new class of molten sodium batteries for grid-scale energy storage. The new battery design was shared in a paper published today in the scientific journal Cell Reports ...
Jul 21, 2021
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752
Engineering
For people who have hypertension and certain other conditions, eating too much salt raises blood pressure and increases the likelihood of heart complications. To help monitor salt intake, researchers have developed a flexible ...
May 7, 2018
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Sodium (pronounced /ˈsoʊdiəm/) is a metallic element with a symbol Na (from Latin natrium or Arabic natrun) and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal and is a member of the alkali metals within "group 1" (formerly known as ‘group IA’). It has only one stable isotope, 23Na.
Elemental sodium was first isolated by Sir Humphry Davy in 1806 by passing an electric current through molten sodium hydroxide. Elemental sodium does not occur naturally on Earth, but quickly oxidizes in air and is violently reactive with water, so it must be stored in an inert medium, such as a liquid hydrocarbon. The free metal is used for some chemical synthesis and heat transfer applications.
Sodium ion is soluble in water in nearly all of its compounds, and is thus present in great quantities in the Earth's oceans and other stagnant bodies of water. In these bodies it is mostly counterbalanced by the chloride ion, causing evaporated ocean water solids to consist mostly of sodium chloride, or common table salt. Sodium ion is also a component of many minerals.
Sodium is an essential element for all animal life and for some plant species. In animals, sodium ions are used in opposition to potassium ions, to allow the organism to build up an electrostatic charge on cell membranes, and thus allow transmission of nerve impulses when the charge is allowed to dissipate by a moving wave of voltage change. Sodium is thus classified as a “dietary inorganic macro-mineral” for animals. Sodium's relative rarity on land is due to its solubility in water, thus causing it to be leached into bodies of long-standing water by rainfall. Such is its relatively large requirement in animals, in contrast to its relative scarcity in many inland soils, that herbivorous land animals have developed a special taste receptor for sodium ion.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
