Re: Disposing of sodium metal - burn it?


<tianbo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
lucasea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
<mmzax@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Thanks to all who made suggestions re. the disposal of 300g of sodium
metal (apart from the guy who said dessolve it in NaCL solution).

I've had another suggestion from someone else - burn it. Not having
burnt sodium before, I'd like to check with you first. If sodium is
burnt, say on a camp fire, does it burn reasonably gently? Is this a
safe way of disposing of it?

No, it is not--it is a very dangerous thing to do.

Works OK on mercury.
Get the fire hot enough and not a trace of it remains, although there
were a few complaints from the school downwind about the smell.

No, it's definitely not alright to burn mercury.

And at the very least, the aerosol of HgO can't be good for you either.


Mercury vapour is
extremely poisonous and inhaling may cause instant death.

I didn't think elemental Hg was that bad--not readily absorbed. Maybe that
only applies to ingestion of liquid Hg. Anyway, the cases of instant death
of which I am aware have involved inhalation of Me2Hg vapors, not elemental
Hg. Don't get me wrong--I agree it's very dangerous.


For e qn on
sodium, perhaps you can leave out in the open for a day or two for
oxidation to take place, then just throw it away.

Unless it's cut up into very small pieces (a hazard in itself), I doubt a
day or two will do it. The crust of Na2O/NaOH drastically slows contact of
the contained metal with atmospheric O2 and H2O. Who besides a licensed
hazmat disposer is going to knowingly take a pound of impure Na2O/NaOH?
Putting it in municipal trash collection is incredibly illegal, and a good
way to badly injure or kill someone--like the bozo in NYC that put a pint of
conc. HF in the muni trash, and killed a garbageman. I know NaOH ain't HF,
but it's still damn corrosive, and it will deliquesce itself into a
concentrated aqueous solution of NaOH/Na2CO3. Also, beware formation of
small amounts of sodium superoxide, which is a very powerful oxidant and can
explode, particularly in contact with metallic Na.

Some towns and cities have periodic municipal hazardous waste collections.
Barring that, by far the OPs best (and only legal) option is professional
disposal.

Oh, and please don't top-post to a bottom-posted thread. It rude and
selfish, and makes it impossible to follow the flow of the conversation.

Eric Lucas


.

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