Prev. Article Next Article Table of Contents

Letter

Potassium Metal Is Explosive—Do Not Use It!

Citing Articles

Andreas Grubelnik and Veronika R. Meyer

EMPA, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, CH-9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland

Peter Bützer and Urban W. Schönenberger

St. Gallen School for Teacher Education, CH-9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland

J. Chem. Educ., 2008, 85 (5), p 634

DOI: 10.1021/ed085p634.2

Publication Date (Web): May 1, 2008

Abstract

The reaction of sodium with water is a spectacular and essential classroom demonstration. Many teachers want to show also the more violent reaction of potassium. We propose not to do so because explosions can happen even before the metal is in contact with water.

Keywords (Audience):

Elementary / Middle School Science

Keywords (Domain):

Safety / Hazards

Keywords (Feature):

Letters

Keywords (Subject):

Metals

View: Hi-Res PDF | PDF w/ Links

Citing Articles

View all 1 citing articles

Citation data is made available by participants in CrossRef's Cited-by Linking service. For a more comprehensive list of citations to this article, users are encouraged to perform a search in SciFinder.

This article has been cited by 1 ACS Journal articles (1 most recent appear below).

Readily Made Solvated Electrons
Jorge G. Ibanez, Francisco J. Guerra-Millan, Muhamad Hugerat, Jorge L. Vazquez-Olavarrieta, Ahmad Basheer, and Riam Abu-Much
Journal of Chemical Education2011 88 (5), 670-672
- Readily Made Solvated Electrons
  Jorge G. Ibanez, Francisco J. Guerra-Millan, Muhamad Hugerat, Jorge L. Vazquez-Olavarrieta, Ahmad Basheer, and Riam Abu-Much
  Journal of Chemical Education2011 88 (5), 670-672
  The existence of solvated electrons has been known for a long time. Key methods for their production (i.e., photoionization of reducing ions, water radiolysis, and the reaction between H· and OH−) are unsuitable for most school laboratories. We describe a ...
  Abstract | Full Text HTML | Hi-Res PDF | PDF w/ Links