Vinegar and baking soda: A cleaning hack or just a bunch of fizz?
Vinegar and baking soda are staples in the kitchen. Many of us have combined them in childhood scientific experiments: think fizzy volcanoes and geysers.
Vinegar and baking soda are staples in the kitchen. Many of us have combined them in childhood scientific experiments: think fizzy volcanoes and geysers.
Analytical Chemistry
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1
Oxidation can degrade the properties and functionality of metals. However, a research team co-led by scientists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) recently discovered that severely oxidized metallic glass nanotubes ...
Nanophysics
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Travel deep enough below Earth's surface or inside the center of the sun, and matter changes on an atomic level.
Materials Science
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656
A method for producing a highly absorbent material from sisal (Agave sisalana)—a drought-tolerant succulent plant—is described in a study published in Communications Engineering. The authors suggest that, with further ...
Biochemistry
Dec 1, 2023
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11
A new electrocatalyst made of nickel (Ni), iron (Fe) and silicon (Si) that decreases the amount of energy required to synthesize H2 from water has been manufactured in a simple and cost-effective way, increasing the practicality ...
Nanomaterials
Nov 27, 2023
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1250
As winter approaches, many communities in Canada and around the world arm themselves against icy roads and sidewalks with a time-honored ally: road salt. For decades, applying road salt has been regarded as a simple but vital ...
Environment
Nov 20, 2023
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24
Chiral molecules can have dramatically different functional properties while sharing identical chemical formulae and almost identical structures. The molecular structure of two types of a chiral molecule—so-called enantiomers—are ...
Analytical Chemistry
Nov 16, 2023
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A team of chemists and physicists at Aarhus University, in Denmark, working with a colleague from Universitat de Barcelona, in Spain, has recorded atom-by-atom solvation for the first time. In their study, published in the ...
The planet's demand for salt comes at a cost to the environment and human health, according to a new scientific review led by University of Maryland Geology Professor Sujay Kaushal. Published in the journal Nature Reviews ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 31, 2023
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247
Data collected by NASA's Juno mission indicates a briny past may be bubbling to the surface on Jupiter's largest moon.
Astronomy
Oct 31, 2023
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164
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.
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