Alkaline Metals | Science

What is an Alkaline Metal?

Alkaline metals are solid soft metals, they stay solid in room temperature but is a soluble meaning it can be dissolved in water and is highly reactive when reacting with H20. There are 6 alkali metals: Lithium, Sodium, Potassium and 3 more alkali metals belong in the same group because they have one electron in their outer shell and all these elements form oxide when dissolved in water to form alkali. 

After the alkali metals react with the water it can fizz up and start but at the same time it is reacting with the oxygen we have creating a Hydrogen gas which occurs when the metal itself explodes or self ignites. The reason to why the alkali metals are soft is because it has 1 electron so the bonding is weak between all the atoms.

Where are they on the P. Table?

They can be found on the left side in the first column which contains the few metals that are reactive which are, Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, Rubidium, Cesium/Caesium and Francium.

What Reaction did we do yesterday?

Yesterday we used Lithium and Sodium to see and observe how both these elements react with water. The results were quite amazing and very interesting. The chemical reaction that was used was :

Sodium + Water →Sodium oxide + H20

Chemical Equation: 2Na + H20 →Na20 + H2

Observasion: When observing the experiment we found a lot of interesting things, once the Sodium was dropped into the water it began to fizz up which indicates that it is already reacting with the oxygen and H20. It didn't take too long until it set itself on fire and exploded. Lots of sparks occurred during the explosion and huge amounts of Hydrogen gas was released, during the explosion I also noticed that when these sparks flew and the fire was gone it left behind bits of what was now called Sodium oxide or in simple, sodium powder.  

Why do these metals react this way?

Because all the alkali metals have 1 electron in their outer shell meaning they are highly reactive