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Asked by emochicinlove to Chris, Eva, Michael, Paddy, Philip on 15 Jun 2011.
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Chris Jordan answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Fluorine’s pretty nasty stuff. But I haven’t done chemistry since I left school – so I’d have to go look this up.
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Michael Wharmby answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Yes, fluorine is extremely reactive – it wants to react with metal to form fluorides which are more stable.
The group one metals like potassium, rubidium and caesium are also really reactive. Potassium, when you drop it in water, releases hydrogen gas which catches fire due to the heat of the metal. Caesium is even more reactive – there’s a video I saw in school showing caesium reacting with water and destroying a glass beaker because of the violence of its reaction.
I guess reacting fluorine and caesium together might be quite fun…! -
Paddy Brock answered on 14 Jun 2011:
What about the recently discovered/created ones, that only exsit for very short periods of time? Or does their decay (?) not count as reactivity?
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Philip Denniff answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Liquid sodium (melting point 98’C) is used in nuclear reactors to transfer the heat generated within the core to the steam generators. The liquid sodium at 500’C is separated from the steam by a sheet of steel. As you know steel rusts in the presence of water, so what happens if a hole rusts through the steel sheet? Michael said already said that the group 1 metals (that include sodium) react violently with water. The steam is put under high pressure so if there is a hole the steam escapes into the sodium and forms a superoxide that is quite stable, rather than the sodium escaping into the steam and causing an explosion. The university I went to was the proved that mixing water in into liquid sodium was quite safe.
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Eva Bachmair answered on 15 Jun 2011:
If I remember correctly from my chemistry lessons at school, that would be fluorine.
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