A while agho I tried to make Sodium using a ceramic planter pot, Caustic soda (lower melting point) and a DC welder.
Preheated the Pot and Caustic soda with a butane gas torch and applied the electrodes...
It spits and sparks and made some small/tiny droplets of Sodium metal, large enough to see. They get coated in caustic soda granules and react quickly with the oxygen in the air, catching fire with pretty sparky spitty flames before getting too covered to react or burning off.
Lots of choking gases too.
My setup needed to be closer to then actual Cell process, the Sodium metal needs to be removed from the air as its made. A proper thick steel pot with a mesh and a cap covering where the metal will rise to and a way to pipe it out.
I found in a broken Kerosene heater that there's several iron/steel tubes inside each other with lots of fine1/16th holes in it and think that they would work fine for the anode/cathodes.
And that's as far as I got.. Fun though.
Sodium is useful as a water drier for getting rid of traces of water in solvents. Its got to be done safety though. Evacuation of moisture from piping such as larger refrigerator tubing lines etc.
Its got similar property's to Lithium.
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