This chemistry demonstration video shows the reactions of group 1 metals in air, in chlorine and in water. Find out about the elements at: www.rsc.org/periodic-table.
A suggestion - when passing around the petri dish(s) to show how light they are, also send around a "control" (empty dish) so one can see they almost weigh the same in one's hand. (add equal tape amount to the control as well if you tape the others).
Drying with paper towel doesn't seem any safer than using Hexane. If you were to wipe the potassium with the paper too hard, for example, you could cause the paper to oxidize the metal (causing a fire). This wiping could also induce a reaction between surface potassium superoxide and potassium metal, depending on how corroded the potassium is (again, causing a fire).
how can these scientist be so sensible, if that was me i would burn a whole chunk of pottasium and dont get me started about cesium... that would be my next best friend.
@THENIGHTELFKALDOREI yeah, but no one can even work with francium because it is one of the most rarest elements, and no one has ever made a synthetic version if it.
Also, francium is almost never with it's outer electron. It loses it so easily, it never actually has it, except for the instant of a nuclear explosion or something that produces francium
Fist off Francium is Highly Radioactive-the longest isotope of Francium is Fr-223 with a half life of 22 minutes. Second, because of its high radioactivity, Francium doesn't last that long (obviously...) and can only be worked with if the chemist, physicist, etc. has a Level A Hazmat suit or a CBRN suit on to protect from the radiation
Francium is extremely rare, with trace amounts found in uranium and thorium ores, where the isotope francium-223 continually forms and decays. As little as 20-30 g (one ounce) exists at any given time throughout the Earth's crust; the other isotopes are entirely synthetic. The largest amount produced in the laboratory was a cluster of more than 300,000 atoms. That's why no francium.
group 1 metals have 1 valence electron, which makes them extremely reactive. it could react with almost anything, but oil isn't reactive with group 1 elements.
stops it oxidizing or reacting with air, like she says in the video, when the shiny part becomes dull, that's the metal oxidizing, NOW LISTEN IN CHEMISTRY CLASS
@gregod10 it IS more reactive than cesium. It has only been tested once and it exploded in Area 51. There was a little test room and one man was killed.
1. This is for school purposes, they are not allowed to test for anything more reactive than potassium due to the violence of the reaction. 2. Francium is radioactive and next to impossible to obtain. 3. Yep haha
francium is extremely radioactive, it has a half-life of 8hours, and because of this cannot be produced stabily for any period of time as it almost completely disappears after a few days no matter how you store it. so in total, Francium is ludicrously radioactive, ridiculously radioactive and has a shorter shelf-life than dodgy vegetables, so not probably the best example to use
It would have been cool But dont think anybody on earth can get enough Fr to react out of the 40 gramms that are constantly reacting and re-creating ( if I can say so ) simulteanously on all the earth's surface xD.
In fact they are reactive because of their low electronegativities AND low ionization energies. Number of electron is not critical here. Fluorine or chlorine has seven electrons and it's also extremely reactive - and in this case is is caused by their high electronegativities AND high electron affinities. These two factors must occur both. There are some element which are characterized by only one of them, and they are not so reactive.
