How is it safe to have alkali metals in foods?

Posted by admin on June 3rd, 2010 and filed under metals | 1 Comment »

Many everyday foods contain alkali metals, which are hiiiiiggghhhllllyyy reactive. If you put a small piece in water you can see quite the reaction. Does anyone have any specific examples of foods that contain ana lkali metal, and anyone know why its safe to eat them in those foods?

alkali metals are safe because our body neeeeeeeds it! Best example is NaCl. We need it everyday to keep our water concentrations at roughly the same level in our body and used in the body for several other things like nerve impulses/signaling etc. It’s also safe because alkali metals are VERY soluble in water, so if there’s too much, we pee it out (don’t kill yourself by overeating salt, you can only pee so much out!). Salty foods like salted fish and canned tuna and salted crackers, and salted peanuts are good examples.

Alkali metals explode in water because they are not in their ionic forms. exploding metals are on fire because they are in their neutral atomic state and are not bonded to anything else. The alkali metals we see in the salt is already bonded to other things or it is in the ionic form, so it is not separated. The exploding versions (refers to your "reaction") of the pure alkali metals are very shiny and soft (DON’T TOUCH!).

besides that, alkali metals, especially sodium, occurs naturally everywhere so you can’t avoid it.

How does soft drink acidity affect different metals?

Posted by admin on May 31st, 2010 and filed under metals | 2 Comments »

I need 3 different metals to use. If anybody knows any good metals that you can buy in a store, please list some.

Thanks!

Get some tacks from a hardware, brass, steel, aluminum, and stainless steel. You could also go to a machine shop someplace and get them to file some metal for you into envelopes to use. Since the filings are so much smaller the effects will be faster than the tacks. Use a measured amount of each(equal teaspoon or grams per container).
Put each of them in a small separate GLASS container with some measured amount of soda. Baby food jars come to mind since they are small. After a few days, the steel one will begin to rust/deteriorate. You might want to use different kinds of sodas to see if they give different effects also. 4 metals, 4 sodas, 16 glasses. Be sure to label each glass with the contents of each so that if a tack (filings) becomes totally dissolved you will know which is which.

The Cycle: Chapter 4 Metals

Posted by admin on May 30th, 2010 and filed under metals | No Comments »

Watch how metals are kept out of landfills and recycled. Watch this and find out more at www.explorethecycle.com

Duration : 0:0:39

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What types of metals are in the new thermostat and the old thermostats?

Posted by admin on May 28th, 2010 and filed under metals | 2 Comments »

we are doing a project and we are comparing the difference between the metals in the old thermostats and the new thermostats. please only answer if you know for sure. we want to know a list of the metals in the old thermostats and a list of the metals in a new thermostat. thank-you!!!

The old ones contained a mercury switch, the new ones use a thermistor and digital electronics to control things. So, it’s mercury vs silicon. The rest of the materials, such as the case, seem irrelevant.

Alkali metals

Posted by admin on May 27th, 2010 and filed under metals | 25 Comments »

what happens when alkali metals enter in contact with water (i’ll give you a hint, it goes BOOM!)

Duration : 0:3:16

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What are the metals and components that a Television set is made up of?

Posted by admin on May 26th, 2010 and filed under metals | 1 Comment »

A TV is made up of CRT,etc.
What I am interested in knowing is the metals it is made up of and also the other components that make up a full Television Set.

plastic

Why do some metals give flame colorations while others do not?

Posted by admin on May 23rd, 2010 and filed under metals | 3 Comments »

While doing an experiment at school I noticed some of the metals didn’t give off any flame colorations. Why is this?

When burned, the metals enter a excited state and release a photon in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Only certain metals can do this–usually transitional metals.

Some metals don’t give colors because they release a photon in the electromagnetic spectrum that is higher or lower than the visible region.

CWA’s McGuire Says This Is `Good Time’ to Buy Metals

Posted by admin on May 22nd, 2010 and filed under metals | No Comments »

May 21 (Bloomberg) — Peter McGuire, managing director at CWA Global Markets Pty, talks with Bloomberg’s Mark Barton about the outlook for commodities including metals.
McGuire spoke from Sydney.

Duration : 0:2:37

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What better way to clean metals than by using emery paper?

Posted by admin on May 19th, 2010 and filed under metals | 1 Comment »

We did an experiment relating to the reactivity series, and it was important for the metals to be clean. We used emery paper to clean the metals. Is there a better way so we could improve our investigation?
A way that wouldn’t affect the metals later when they are reacted with different metal solutions?

Try 5% nitric acid in water

Alkali metals in water, accurate!

Posted by admin on May 17th, 2010 and filed under metals | 25 Comments »

Watch to the end for the best (Cesium!)! A wonderful representation of the alkali metals and their accurate reactivity with water. unlike brainiac, who did infact use explosives in their episode for rubidium and cesium. Very worth a watch.
All credit for this video goes to the makers of physical science, and openlearn.open.ac.uk. Link here:

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=294420

Made available by Creative commons attribution.
Footage from:
“Physical Science: The Living Textbook” (Cosmic Chemistry chapters 1-6), copyright 1991 by Optical Data Corp., 30 Technology Drive, Warren, New Jersey
Thank you for this video.
Ps. You will not get to see Francium in water!

Duration : 0:2:22

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