Energy & Green Tech
In years to come, sodium-ion batteries (NIBs) could potentially be a great alternative to current energy storage systems. Despite their advantages, including the abundance of sodium and a potentially long cycle life, these ...
Energy & Green Tech
In recent years, engineers worldwide have been trying to devise new battery and energy storage technologies that are more sustainable and cost-effective. One of the solutions attracting particular interest is sodium-based ...
Energy & Green Tech
(TechXplore)—Most of the sodium-ion batteries that have been developed so far have been half-cell batteries, meaning that the anode is made of a standard sodium metal. However, this standard sodium metal becomes highly ...
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
0
54
Energy & Green Tech
Researchers at MIT say they have created a new material that will pave the way to faster charging batteries.
Engineering
Lithium cobalt oxide is a layered metal oxide that has attracted great attention to develop rechargeable batteries. Sodium-ion batteries can store grid-scale energy due to the natural abundance of sodium. The composition ...
Engineering
Last year, MIT engineers developed a double-sided adhesive that could quickly and firmly stick to wet surfaces such as biological tissues. They showed that the tape could be used to seal up rips and tears in lungs and intestines ...
Jun 22, 2020
0
225
Energy & Green Tech
Washington State University (WSU) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers have created a sodium-ion battery that holds as much energy and works as well as some commercial lithium-ion battery chemistries, ...
Jun 1, 2020
6
3821
Energy & Green Tech
From electric cars that travel hundreds of miles on a single charge to chainsaws as mighty as gas-powered versions, new products hit the market each year that take advantage of recent advances in battery technology.
Jun 19, 2018
3
94
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
0
394
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
