OK, I know that this thread is 4 years old, but I had to put my two cents in since it was just about the only place on the net where I could find a reference to "molten sodium acetate".
Justonium, I could not agree more with your attitude that just because your experiment yielded this stinking black oil instead of the product you were after does not mean that it is unimportant. All of the negative replies that you got were written by people who either A) didn’t read your post fully and only saw the last line where you mentioned elemental sodium production, or B) didn’t have a clue as t o what you got and were trying to come up with something to say that sounded more intelligent than “I don’t know”.
I was trying to produce sodium acetate just for the hell of it (yes, I am a chemistry power nerd and I do these kind of things for fun).. I produced the compound by the reaction of vinegar and sodium carbonate. I allowed it to air dry and was getting beautiful crystals of sodium acetate when I got bored and decided to re-dissolve it water and heat it up on my kitchen has stove in a metal pot. I heated it up until I got anhydrous sodium acetate and was about to stop when I noticed this black, oily liquid coming out from under a bed of crystals on one side of the pot.
Curiosity got the best of me, and so I let it keep on heating when suddenly all of the sodium acetate crystals “melted” down into this stinking black oil. The smell given off was NOTHING like acetone , and so I then decided to quickly cool the whole mess in a larger pot containing ice water.. The black oil solidified into a metallic looking substance which DID end up dissolving in water to create on opaque, black solution I have absolutely no idea what it is, and is I ever find out I will certainly post it on this thread.
Justonium, don’t let the scientific establishment wear you down with their laziness and lackadaisical attitude. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries were made by accident and by someone with curiosity investigating the results of a “mistake”.
