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Materials

Chemistry In Pictures

Chemistry in Pictures: Metal slug

by Craig Bettenhausen
November 13, 2018

A lump of molten metal swirls inside a cloudy beaker.
Credit: NurdRage

Youtuber Nurdrage has done a lot of work on isolating elemental sodium. To clean up the product from one method, he needed to separate sodium from magnesium. He heated the mixture in mineral oil to 125 °C along with a few milliliters of a tertiary alcohol. The blob of molten sodium shown swirls around the flask because of the magnetic stirrer integrated into the hotplate; the sodium is paramagnetic, so the stirrer’s magnetic field pulls the metal along. The excess magnesium separates from the sodium and forms a fine powder that falls to the bottom of the beaker.

Credit: @NurdRage, see more at youtube.com/user/NurdRage

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