Hi all,

I wish if I can find an experimentalist who can answer this question. I am physical chemist who would like to prepare sodium ethoxide from sodium and ethanol. my question is how to handle sodium (clean, prevent it from burning...etc) before I add it to ethanol?

 

 

Thanks

 

 

Hany

keep it in mineral oil, avoid exposure to air, clean it before you chuck it in and if you get a fire don't chuck water over it. pretty much common sense.

I'd probably spay it off with some ether to clean the mineral oil off and then chunk it in

This prep gives a good set of instructions but a practical chemistry textbook would be better.

http://www.orgsyn.org/orgsyn/prep.asp?prep=cv3p0016

They do say they have some maintainance scheduled so you may find the site's down. Try again later.

Also they may want you to log into their site- don't worry it's pretty painless.

Why would you want to go to the trouble of preparing it when you can just buy it (eg sigma aldrich)?