Patreon Preview - Fundamental mechanistic insights and new catalysts

I would love to see this pathway characterized and published in a peer reviewed journal in the future.

Potassium first then, i hope ….? :D

Ragnar Elstad

Once i pin down sodium, i'll move onto other metals like potassium. The problem with cesium chloride is that the thermodynamics say chloride wouldn't work very well. So I would need to make it into cesium hydroxide. That in itself is a very involved process because cesium hydroxide is even more corrosive to glassware than sodium hydroxide, it might not even survive the very modest temperatures we're using. But it's certainly something to try.

NurdRage

Just brilliant. How satisfying it must be to be able to take your theory and hand-select new catalysts after having to essentially guess through trial-and-error the previous candidates. I do wonder if you're interested in trying to extend the theory and practice to other light alkali metals like potassium, calcium, or even cesium? Potassium seems to behave rather differently than sodium and I've only been able to make some once, and then I couldn't reproduce the results since it was part way through a sodium run that I added some potassium hydroxide (Just out of curiosity, no idea what it would do) which quickly produced potassium before the parts I couldn't remove quickly enough rapidly decomposed. Cesium is particularly interesting due its reactivity and very high cost in elemental form. Cesium chloride is relatively inexpensive in comparison (Around $65 for 100g from Amazon, or around $25 for 25g), and while it's possible to reduce this with lithium and high temperatures, somewhat similar to the burning magnesium/sodium hydroxide process, it would be very nice to be able to produce it without the high temperatures and custom metal tooling required. Any thoughts?

Larry B