Is there a way to keep sodium and chlorine from reacting with one another? Is there another chemical that can be added, or maybe alter the reaction conditions?

a barrier between them works.

 

we would be able to help more if we knew what application this was for.

If they are dry, they will hardly react at all IIRC. One drop of water on the sodium and it reacts rapidly.

when you say "dry", though, you have to mean REALLY dry.

 

I did this reaction the other day and was surprised to see, before I even got a drop of water into the flask to start the reaction, large crystals of sodium chloride were growing at a visible rate on the surface of the sodium.

Thanks all for the help. This was actually an idea I was pondering. I was thinking about how in cystic fibrosis, chloride ions build up in the cell membrane, and they combine with sodium in the extracelluar fluid. The salt created then fills in the lungs, providing for a very muscous filled environment. I was wondering if it was possible to stop that reaction. Apparently there is not.

Well, for cystic fibrosis you would want to fix is the ability to move Cl^- ions, not stop the reaction with sodium (which would be impossible in the body and would result in poisonous chlorine buildup). Anyhow, the salt would draw water out of the body and into the lungs by osmosis, resulting in fluid being transfered to the lungs. This is a good thing. Without the transfer of enough water to the mucus in the lungs, the mucus becomes very thick and is hard to get rid of. So you actually want some salt to be transferred to the mucus in the lungs.