Why can't we use sodium chloride solution to get the sodium metal?

Question

Why can't we use sodium chloride solution to get the sodium metal?

1 Answer

Impact of this question

8625 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2017-01-02T00:37:29

Because the solution only contains ${Na}^{+}$ $"Na"^(+)$ and ${Cl}^{-}$ $"Cl"^(-)$ ions, and water, and not the metal $Na (s)$ $"Na"(s)$ . You cannot evaporate the water from the solution and hope to obtain anything but $NaCl (s)$ $"NaCl"(s)$ .

$Na (s)$ $"Na"(s)$ has an electron configuration of $1 s^{2} 2 s^{2} 2 p^{6} 3 s^{1}$ $1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^1$ , but ${Na}^{+} (a q)$ $"Na"^(+)(aq)$ has an electron configuration of $1 s^{2} 2 s^{2} 2 p^{6}$ $1s^2 2s^2 2p^6$ . That means they are not the same element, and thus, there is no straightforward way of extracting $Na (s)$ $"Na"(s)$ from a $NaCl (a q)$ $"NaCl"(aq)$ solution.

(crudely speaking, you would have to supply an electron for every atom of ${Na}^{+} (a q)$ $"Na"^(+)(aq)$ in the solution, which is quite hard to do. You would also have to "undissolve" the particles and collect them into a lattice of metal $Na$ $"Na"$ atoms, which is even harder.)

Science

Math

Humanities

... and beyond

Why can't we use sodium chloride solution to get the sodium metal?

1 Answer

Related questions

Impact of this question