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- Опубликовано: 12 июл 2015
- NaK - the alloy of Sodium and Potassium - is notorious among chemists. But it can be pumped in an ingenious way.
Featuring Professors Steve Howdle and Martyn Poliakoff.
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You guys really have a nak for chemistry.
Dayum…
+Chris Musix
I don't see what you did there. I don't see it at all.
*NaK
I found your "reaction" very humorous.
*Na* I don't see what you did there
So you're telling me they built a sodium potassium pump?
yep
when you just skim the biology textbook
Did they destroy it with digoxin?
@Nicolas Broszky I thought so, but thanks for confirming
@Nicolas Broszky Sodium-Potassium ion pump would be the biological process... They made a Sodium-Potassium alloy "pump", from what I've seen it's not really a similar process because they both pump differently. Although, it's very fascinating to contrast them. I've never really heard of a NaK alloy until now, granted I've only been in my 2nd year of Chemistry.
We deal with this at my uni, people with parasitical nonresearch nonteaching positions dictate to working scientists what is safe despite having less understanding than the scientists they dictate to. All this does is reduce training in how to make experiments safe and so, ultimately, reduce safety.
Ahh yes. The ol' "too many cooks spoil the broth" issue. Prevalent within almost every major university and company.
.
yep its ridiculous beyond belief
aside from the risk of accidents, there's also a security risk if someone steals dangerous materials, or if vandals damage the apparatus.
@@seekbalance6891 that's just silly
I think I just found my next GPU cooling system.
+Igor Petrusky Danamics makes a liquid metal CPU cooler.
btw, now i'm using an old refrigerator pump with a radiator and butane as a coolant, that thing reaches 2DegC easy, if you want some real cooling system try that.
GTX 480 problems?
@@isaacroebuck9514 You mean _RX_ -480?
@@fss1704 That is fascinating. Do you just use it in a loop, or do you use an orifice valve / capillary to make a low pressure side? Basically, use the "water block" as an evaporator.. I'd love to see a picture of this.
If I were choosing a uni to do chemistry at I would partly base my decision on how unsafe an experiment I was allowed to do. If I caught fire on the campus tour I would pick that uni for sure.
Ditto. Have to learn somehow!
Learning is being cut off at the knees by that very concept. It's really a shame that the "answer" to the problem isn't to get rid of the idiots that can't handle it, but to instead get rid of the materials that the idiots can't handle.
Someone at my school was drying some superflamable liquid. Blew, like, 20 windows and wrecked a car on the street below. They found the door of the drying chamber embeded in in the next room's wall.
@@theyoten1613 yea sure they did ...
"Destroyed"... uh huh. Let's not ask Steve what that bubbling noise is coming from his basement.
That's his potion making setup
We don't have a basement 😂😂
Thomas Howdle Steve's son?
I got ya. No basement.
*wink*wink*nudge*nudge*saynomore*dontlookintheattic*
+TVFILMBUFF #conspiracy
I seriously hope one of them still has it and demonstrates it to those that can handle the responsibility
It would be interesting to see 1) how the NaK alloy was created and 2) the process used to seal it in the apparatus without exposing to air.
It's created by combining molten sodium and potassium under mineral oil or kerosene.
Pulled into an argon flushed syringe and placed into an argon flushed test tube or apparatus then sealed as any other apparatus or ampule would be. Not very exciting .
Replying to an old comment, but I use NaK in my lab to purify gases. It’s quite remarkable how it’s made.
You literally take potassium metal and sodium metal and you touch them together. They legit just melt together. Of course done in an atmosphere of nitrogen or argon.
Glove box my dude
@@SharpAssKnittingNeedles or a schlenk line
@@ericlotze7724 suffering the misery of a glove box I am sadly not blessed to experience a schlenck system. We work so weird in dry labs
It's truly unfortunate that science is being limited these days. At our school my chemistry and biology teachers told us about experiments they used to do that were really fun. But now we can't do them because of "safety reasons". If no one gets hurt and care is taken why not do them? Proper handling of dangerous chemicals never hurt anyone, just as the professor said with the liquid sodium.
Moeyz69 I don't know where you live, but I've played with ammonia, NaOH and sulfuric acid before in chemistry. Not to mention that while I didn't handle it myself (which was more so due to the heavy metal container it was in, more so than the chemical), I've been around liquid nitrogen in a chemistry lab.
There was also this one time when one of the chemistry professors decided to set of some gun cotton without telling any of us... that was fun.
Moeyz69 I agree entirely. It's worth noting however that NaK is particularly nasty stuff -- even liquid sodium will actually solidify at some point, the solid metal isn't flammable by itself. NaK can catch fire on contact with air, and who knows how you put it out (I mean, it'll just catch fire when the extinguisher clears out). And let's hope the water sprinklers don't activate!
So I'm torn, keeping the experiment and destroying the experiment are both unacceptable options.
TheHue's SciTech removing the NaK and putting the pump it self on display with a video display in the background would be the sensible course of action.
TheMohawkNinja hear you on that. our high school lab .. let alone university .. had tanks of Br , Cl, F , H, He, HCN & 02 gases. cannisters and jars of red and white phosphorus, Na and K probably 10+ lbs of it, plenty of Hg and many other chemicals you need special licenses for in the present day. None of the cabinets were locked, nor were the class room doors.
Nobody blew up the lab or school, got poisoned or became an anarchist.
kasnitch
You specify present day. How long ago were you in high school and college?
"I need to demonstrate something really quick. I think I'll just grab some of my award trophies and use those."
Yep, that's Sir Martyn for ya.
The Sov's had NaK- or Sodium-cooled reactors on a few subs and power plants. They had a few accidents and "oops" incidents involving maintenance of the coolant loops. One or two reactors had to be literally disassembled due to someone shutting off the heaters and the metal coolant solidifying in the pipes, causing damage to the system. A couple of explosions due to sodium leaks forced the Sov's to discontinue using the liquid metal and settle for water/barium solutions in a PWR setup.
There's quite a lot of NaK apparently floating around in space. It was used as the coolant for the reactors that powered a number of Soviet satellites- called RORSATs; a total of 31 were launched between 1967 and 1988. When they reached their end of life, the satellites were sent up to a higher 'graveyard' orbit and the reactor core was ejected into space. In most cases, this process released the coolant which continues to orbit the Earth.
in the company I used to worked for we saved historic pieces by getting the management approval for destruction and then bringing it to an unspecified "disposal company". At the end of it, it was in a private basement. Management of course did not know but also not care as it was out of the way. Of course, in this case they must prove that the NaK gets disposed safely at with all papers, but the pump it self could be "disposed" by bringing it to a "metal scrapper" but never arriving there.
And that's the story of how I got a lot of stuff from my community college. I knew the maintenance man disposing of the stuff and also had a friend with a recycling company. Long story short not everything marked for disposal made it there.
Scientist A: "Hey, you know what this dangerous nuclear reactor could use? A coolant that burn in air and explodes in water!"
Scientist B: "Hell, yeah! How about we run a water-filled pipe through it?"
Scientist A: "Genius!"
RarelyEvil They have to use water to cool it.
The AdamMZ Yes, the water cools the coolant, but more importantly the coolant heats the water, turning it into steam. That steams drives a turbine to generate power.
RarelyEvil At least it doesn't react explosively with uranium or plutonium in the core, unlike water.
RarelyEvil Those were engineers, not scientists!
you do know that's how the process works to heat the water right ? also what does it matter, metal is solid....
Professors Steve Howdle looks like a young version of Martyn.
I'll tell him you said that 😂
He is the professors son!
You can test that by Tom Jones song.
More like Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (aka Billy Wilder)
Health and safety gone mad.
glenwoofit Not really. If it smashed I imagine people would die.
Doug Soutar I could imagine that glass turning into pretty good shrapnel.
I do agree they should have just tried to make it safer though. They shouldn't have destroyed it.
+LE/A Tyrone There was nothing dangerous about it. It's the nanny state imbecile politics that did it.
It wouldn't explode because of a lack of oxygen available. It could blow a big flame out of the filler hole and singe all your eyebrows off however. Most likely a flame would ignite near the filler hole and stay there without doing much at all. Depends on air fuel vapour mixes
+Dazzwidd actually it could, that's just too much improbable. if there was a leak in the filling hole, the air would enter the flask and act as a jamjar jet for a few seconds until the amout of oxygen/air in the flask get to a cartain amount and temperature, then it would explode
Have you considered doing a subseries of chemical instruments and/or tecniques on this channel? Hearing the professors talking about MS, NMR, IR etc would be interesting!
I so love all your videos. Thank you all.
Oliver Sachs in his autobiography Uncle Tungsten described how he and his friends (young boys) contrived to get a lump of sodium the size of a loaf of bread. Naturally, they cycled to the local park and heaved it off the bridge into the duck pond with a predictable outcome. He did not say what happened to the ducks. Every boy dreams of this kind of chemistry. Glad to see your programs as you are able to do these things and neither man nor duck is harmed.
Excellent video, it is well made and stays on subject without straying.
What an *awesome* device (and video)!
"They got rid of it" - We want a video of the decision makers! :D
Where's that a wide angle lens
NaK is back, babyyyy! Game of the year!
An entire 3 copies sold, demonstrating the insane reach of donkey channel l
Hello! I beg you to please activate spanish subtitles. Every hispanic kid and boy should see your videos. Thank you and greetings from Mexico.
Wish we had this guy teaching chemistry when I was at school. I might have paid a bit more attention and spent less time washing sodium hydroxide out of my mouth.
Excellent, very informative video Professor!
There are a few metals that have a low mp. Gallium has been mentioned. Density 5.91 g/cm3.
There is also Wood's metal. There is Gallinstan (gallium, indium, tin alloy) that you find in new thermometers.
Are the electrodes in actual contact with the NaK? Do the electrodes pierce the glass container?
If so, how does the NaK effect the electrode tips?
And if not, how does the current effect the system at all?
I've seen that red and yellow magnet from inside the apparatus in another video where the professor is using it in a classroom demo! I like that magnet.
The best safety is solid working knowledge. If you cannot teach or work with something because it is "unsafe" then that in itself is creating the safety issue by lack of knowledge!
Keep up the Excellent videos Professor!
I love your videos keep up the good work!
I recently (bout 2 weeks ago) found this amazing channel and I feel it would be the perfect place to ask about oklo where several natural nuclear fission reactors were found. I was hoping you can do a video on that and maybe get the professors views on Nuclear power and its hopefully bright future?
This blew my mind. I've been on holidays too long, got me keen to go back to uni.
The NaK fountain operates by using (reversed) MHD (MagnetoHydroDynamics) as a motor.
Was wondering, to get better views of 'bangs' if NaK could be dropped while in an container filled with dense inert gas into water or have it bubbled in through a thin pipe underwater?
Plain Na or K can be used, if apparatus is kept warm enough, if liquid contact is desired.
I had one week of winter break in my 1 year Bachelor of Science chemistry studies and used it for binge watching periodic videos
Great lecture sir Martyn. Hope to hear from you again the soonest. Leo and Sofia.
Always heard of sodium-cooled reactors, but never understood the principle behind it... thanks!
NaK is back baby
This video is very apropos for me. I'm taking a summer physics course and we just started talking about magnetic fields today. We're told to use the right hand rule rather than the left. Now I'm curious if it's taught differently in the US vs. UK, or if it differs everywhere.
There are types of coating you can apply to glass, to make it so gallium doesn't stick to it. That means, if you also introduce a little heating coil, you can safely make this apparatus using gallium as the liquid metal.
This is the best title I have seen on RUclips.
it would be nice to talk about the connection between temperature, re-activity and corrosion and how corrosive a substance is is actually relative to what it is contained in such as how a FliBe molten salt (though normally corrosive) can be managed inside a Hastelloy N or related alloy. o/
Another great video!
And the reason we like to use NaK in fast reactors is that it is basically transparent to neutrons. With things like water, neutrons end up bumping into them and slowing down or being absorbed quite a lot. With NaK, the absorption and bumping is pretty minimal. NaK was what we like to use in the west for fast reactors, while the Russian's favored using lead and lead-bismuth alloys. There are advantages and disadvantages to both,
Lead might not react with the air like NaK, but it is super heavy and can also be corrosive at high temperatures and flow rates. Lead is also a solid at room temperature which means you have to worry about your coolant freezing and clogging things up. We favor NaK in the west as a result, even though it can be explosively reactive. Which is better is mostly a matter of what you are attempting to design for.
BeCurieus But why don't they use gallium?
Daan Zoomer Because Gallium has a rather high neutron absorption cross section which is very bad for a fast breeder reactor. It actually would stop the nuclear fission process.
And this neutron absorption causes the gallium atoms to become a radioactive isotope?
Daan Zoomer Neutrons are basically what keep the chain reaction going. If you lose to many, you can't have a reactor. So while it is also making the gallium radioactive, that isn't the REAL problem, the real problem is the reactor might not be as efficient or be work at all without higher enriched fuel. I don't have my chart in front of me, so I can't compare gallium to NaK, but that is one of the reasons NaK was chosen, is that it doesn't react with neutrons very much compared to other materials.
Would it be possible to use a coil of wire surrounding the base of the tube instead of having to lug the 2 large magnets around? You could use a lower current and still achieve a stronger magnetic field theoretically via this inductor configuration.
Should be Natrium and Kalium. That's why the symbols are Na and K.
That was the stupidest thing I've ever heard
In most other languages it is natrium and kalium actually.
+Kenny.49 in Slavic languages it's Natrium and Kalium
English is actually an outlier on this one. Just like with "pineapple".
Nikola Ristić it's latin for christ's sake
Other than the glass in the display pump, what metals were determined to be non-corrosive when exposed to NaK during testing?
At first, I thought that this video was on a compound of sodium and potassium. That would be pretty cool, but very unlikely.
John Stuart a guy did it on youtube
he melted sodium metal and potassium powder trying to get potassium metal but got a sodium potassium alloy
That's not quite the same, though. That's more of a mixture. I mean an actual compound.
UH OH, DID SOMEONE SAY NAAAAAAAAAAK????!?!!!!!!
HERE COMES THE MONEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!
NAK IS BACK BAYBEEEEEEEE
NACK 2 BABY!!!!!!
Dunky go home bro you're drunk
It's a MASTAPEEEEEECE
Great video, I'm a chemist and I never even knew about NaK!!!
I didnt know it was possible for two elements of the same group to even bond, but i only took 1 general chemistry class 🤷♂️
What is in the bulb in which the NaK fountain is located? An inert atmosphere or a vacuum?
I don’t mean the argon filled bell jar.
I was going to suggest if a higher temperature was used, gallium might be suitable, but as I recall, it wets glass, does it not?
Why does a alloy of solid Na and solid K become liquid?
Andrew Wilson mixtures melt at a lower temperature than pure substances - same reason we put salt on the roads in winter. Both sodium and potassium have low melting points to start with so a mixture drops that melting point below room temp.
Andrew Wilson I am afraid that the answer is a rather complicated problem in thermodynamics very similar to the one that explains the liquid state of mercury.
So the simplistic answer is that the melting point of the alloy is much lower than the ones of its parts,but its not a real answer.
Andrew Wilson Magic!
Andrew Wilson Aloys of metals often have a lower melting point, perhaps because the different sized atoms have trouble sticking together as much. There are a few more exotic alloys that are liquid at room temp or close.
The explanation I have in mind, is that the "default case" is liquid. So, we start from liquid and go down in temperature. (which is also how the low melting point alloys get made - both metals get molten together and then cool down) Just like water + salt, Na + K have much more trouble "freezing" then the water or in this case Na and K on their own.
I was and I am always fascinated by the Sn alloys. Sn allone has an achievable melting point for home use, but the fun start with Pb and/or Bi. Of course, both bismut and lead are toxic, but well... It is still amazing to see how the melting point goes below the boiling point of water.
Wow!
Are there other alkali-metal alloys w/ similar properties (like, say, LiK or RbCs)?
Could you make a video explaining why two solid metals make a liquid alloy? Seems like a bit of a mystery to me.
I swear the health and safety bureaucrats will bring about the second dark ages 😒. How are we meant to inspire the next generation if all the interesting stuff can't be shown! Thank you for having the common sense to record it before it was disposed of.
Only in america :)
@@drsolo7 bruh, they're in the UK
@@link11913 yes
It would be very interesting to find out what kind of metal piping could be used for NaK, as well as what could be used for piping gaskets.
Inconel
Oh that is so cleaver. To make a NaK pump with magnets, I never would have thought of it.
Has there been any research into materials with similar characteristics as NaK, e.g. good thermal conductivity, but not quite as reactive?
have you guys done a video of thorium? and how people say its the power of the future.
"Too dangerous"
Riiiiiight.. Stop fighting in wars then mr government man.
Cadde Ah, but that's just it - they don't. They get us to do it instead. For many, they even get them to *want* to 😒
Is the area inside the glass dome filled with argon, or was he saying that the place where the spout is at is filled with argon? Or both?
How are samples of metals introduced into the system to test whether they will corrode from the NaK or not?
Could the circulating NaK in a reactor be used to directly generate a current instead of using it to heat water?
Mechanical pumps where used with NAK in the reactors. If I recall they used cryogenics to freeze NAK and use the frozen NAK as a bearing surface. Clever but unreliable and leaks were common.
Would this experiment also work using Gallium-Indium alloy which has a melting point of 15.7C. or Gallium-Indium-Tin alloy which has a melting point below 0C.
The density of GaIn is significantly higher (6.25g/cm3) than NaK though and it wets glass really well so you need some coating to prevent it from sticking to the glass. But it's not toxic/slightly toxic (but there are hardly any studies done on it).
Wasn't there a proposed electricity generator that used NaK (or maybe just pure Na or K, I can't recall anymore) where you had the loop of liquid metal, and the magnetic field, but then hated it and used the heat to cause circulation around the loop, and used that to generate electricity?
Is the magnet in this apparatus the same as the one in the liquid oxygen video?
Are there any electrically conductive compound solutions such as saline that could be pumped in the same way?
Do you guys have a link to the research papers done on NaK corrosion, I couldn't find any from a quick google search
Super interesting, as usual
A pump with no moving parts, beautiful.
Still I'm amazed they never eventually had a leak with it, the consequences would be unfathomable. How would you even explain that to the fire crew?
I love periodic videos
Question,2V@40A is 80Watt How did you got rid of that heat? Or did you run is short times to not get to much heat in that system? Like that mercury idea :D The multiple "motor" set works and at most needs external cooling to adsorb the heat produced in the mercury resistor.
IT can be done dudes! When the set-up is really big it doesn't even need forced cooling well almost not,we still need some fans or .chiller to chill execs heat. after long runs.
Big is as large as the jar that contains the original experiment.
How does two solid alkali metals become a liquid? Does this have to do with a rearrangement in their metallic bonding from the the new alloy? Cheers.
What if you mix NaK and HG in some 10:3 or 10:5 parts ?
Whould be Interesting to know what the psu is being used for? 2vdc@100amps?
Could we use indium alloy like thw one they use for computer under the name liquid metal
Would this not be possible with gallium? It's a light element, so would still work, but is (as far as I'm aware) non-toxic. Might need to do it in a hot room/use mild heating pads, but it would be an excellent demonstration piece to show how the original experiment worked.
They sound very sour about the apparatus being deemed too dangerous 😂
How do you get 2 elements right next to each other, that are extremely reactive too, to stick together??
You stick both the k and the na in bowl containing non reactive mineral oil, then you melt the na and the k and mix them together with a glass stirring rod
This channel has a NaK for producing interesting content.
My brother is a chemist and when he was doing his PhD, they had another chemist in the lab nicknamed Char Dog. They had flasks of NaK in kerosene (if I remember right, it was something like that) all over the lab. One shattered and splashed him, he went to the eyewash station, which ignited the NaK and thus the kerosene that covered him. He had some scarring but was otherwise more or less okay.
Being blind is more or less okay?
@@troxexlot18 There was a huge black soot spot staining the wall and burned sections of ceiling at the eyewash station (and stayed there for.a while, not sure why). From the fire that engulfed and burned him. Yes, I think he would have chosen the much stronger emergency body shower or got help from fellow chemists there to look and remove any NaK on him. Had he known.
Could this work for FLiBe (Lithium Fluoride Beryllium Fluoride)?
Another alloy that's liquid at room-temperature is a combination of Gallium, Indium, and Tin, which is sold under the commercial trade-name of Galinstan. It can be left exposed to ambient air without being hazardous to people, but unlike mercury, it wets glass (it sticks to glass) and porcelain, and human skin, which makes it almost as much of a hassle to handle as mercury's toxicity makes it to handle.
So what was the result of the experiment? Does NaK corrode the metal pipes?
Is there any rule that predicts the melting point of a eutectic? - and why is it lower (if it always is) than either component
So... is NaK attracted to a magnet? as well as being conductive?
What about gallium or a gallium-indium-tin alloy? Though of course you'd have to coat the inside of the apparatus in gallium(III) oxide for it not to wet the glass.
could have wrapped a coil around it then upped the voltage to increase the force safely for the mercury. really interesting stuff, thanks for posting.
Could galinstan be used instead of NaK for cooling as long as they aren't using aluminium piping? It's a lot safer.
What about using Gallium and just keeping the average temperature above 30C so that it stays liquid?
Are these videos flipped? Why are you guys using your left hands for the right hand rule?
Jeevan m.n You must be an engineer. I did physics and magnetic fields were always right hand rule.
***** Tbh it's stubborn scientists who let that happen. When they discovered that current was opposite to electron flow, they should have just changed it from then!
I prefer right hand slap rule rather than left hand grip rule, because it can be related to the right hand grip rule, as the thumb is the current for both :)
you know you're a badass prof when you use your trophies as props :)
1:22 - Couldn't mercury have been used as a coolant for the same reasons, though?
They use NAK in high end oven thermostats whenever I replaced one they always send an explosion proof bags... Which never get used because I take them apart and play with the NAK.
When will this compound evaporate? A bit of online research didn't give me a clue, making me believe it would somehow decompose when reaching a critical temperature?
What about the gallium liquid alloy? Would it fit in?
Insulin video !!! Love you guys, type one diabetic here have always been curious how to make insulin and would love to learn from y'all your friend Donibetes, from California!!
7:02 It was a NaK-t of vandalism