Hot Salt

[YT2095]

sitting in my shed with the Butane heater on and making some pita breads on the grill in front of it, a few grains of table salt (NaCl) fell onto the ceramic element.

 

it burned the typical bright yellow for about a minute then faded out?

 

 

SO.... What happened to it?

[Silencer]

Vaporized?

[YT2095]

well yes, I`de agree to a point.

 

BUT, HOW?

 

obviously the sodium ions got exhausted, so what happened to the Chlorine though?

and surely the buring temp of an Air + Butane heater shouldn`t disassociate these ions?

[Lance]

Weird... You have seen my glowing salt picture haven’t you? It doesn’t seem likely that it just vaporized. Maybe it was from impurities.

[YT2095]

What was from "imputities"?

 

 

the fact that the yellow flame stopped eventualy?

[Lance]

I don’t know. I was just saying that that really doesn’t sound like something pure salt would do. Although if it fell directly on the filament it could probably get pretty hot.

[YT2095]

it fell into the ceramic (Orange hot) element.

[5614]

i love it how when a scientist sees something common, like salt falling on a flame, it triggers a reaction along the path of this thread.

 

i think it is one of the things which makes scientists so clever.

 

its like a normal person would think nothing of it, a mathematician would see an equation for it (or something!) and a scientist would see the compounds breaking up and oxidising or reducing and burning or whatever!

 

i cant really add to the thread, or not more than whats been said, maybe it just burnt up into something else or fell off or something!

 

i just thought that i'd point that out though.

[Lance]

But what makes it weird is that it didn’t fall on a flame. If it fell on a flame you could say that the sodium ions colored the flame. But it only fell on a piece of hot ceramic.

 

Maybe there was a flammable impurity which was ignited and colored by the Na.

[5614]

wouldnt the Na burn up and 'disappear' as it was converted into heat and light energy (the flame) and therefore no longer exists.

 

of course, it could have just fallen victim to gravity and fallen off.

 

i dont know... YT.... what did it look like happened to it?

[jdurg]

Perhaps the salt melted, and then since it was such a small amount and there were no salt vapors in the air, it evaporated. (Since any liquid does have a vapor pressure, little bits of it can evaporate). Perhaps the salt liquified and then evaporated?

[Lance]

Yea, I suppose it possible but it’s extremely hard to even melt salt.

[Silencer]

Only 800*C I thought. Those butane torches from unitednuclear say they can get higher than that (1648.888*C).

[YT2095]

the evaporation part sounds likely!

 

Cheerz

[jdurg]

Happy to help. As most people know, liquids will evaporate even far below their boiling point. Look at mercury and bromine. Those two have very high vapor pressures and will evaporate far below their boiling point. I'm fairly certain that the salt did evaporate after the time it spent on the heating element. Perhaps you should execute the 'experiment' again and see if you get the same results?

[Gilded]

"ts like a normal person would think nothing of it, a mathematician would see an equation for it (or something!) and a scientist would see the compounds breaking up and oxidising or reducing and burning or whatever!"

 

And I think "Perhaps I could use this to blow something up!".

[Lance]

Happy to help. As most people know, liquids will evaporate even far below their boiling point.

 

Yes, but not explosively so. That’s like saying that on a warm day after a rain everything will violently boil away.

 

Perhaps you should execute the 'experiment' again and see if you get the same results?

 

Yes, I would like to see this too. I'm still not convinced that it vaporized.

[jdurg]

Yes' date=' but not explosively so. That’s like saying that on a warm day after a rain everything will violently boil away.

[/quote']

 

Yes, but YT did not say that it explosively dissapeared. He just stated that it burned with a yellow colored flame, which is indicitive of excited sodium atoms, and then just dissapeared. I believe that the heat caused the salt to melt, and then it vaporized thus giving the yellow color. The yellow color dissapeared once the salt had vaporized and was no longer in the presence of the heat. (I guess this would be a similar occurance to what happens in those sodium lamps they use on the highways, though in a different manner).

[Gilded]

"I believe that the heat caused the salt to melt, and then it vaporized thus giving the yellow color."

 

That what it sure sounds like, at least for what YT has told so far. :I