Note 38 — Chapter XII · SODIUM

Since the close of the eighties in England, where the preparation of sodium is at present carried out on a large commercial scale (from 1860 to 1870 it was only manufactured in a few works in France), it has been the practice to add to Deville's mixture iron, or iron oxide which with the charcoal gives metallic and carburetted iron, which still further facilitates the decomposition. At present a kilogram of sodium may be purchased for about the same sum (2/-) as a gram cost thirty years ago. Castner, in England, greatly improved the manufacture of sodium in large quantities, and so cheapened it as a reducing agent in the preparation of metallic aluminium. He heated a mixture of 44 parts of NaHO, and 7 parts of carbide of iron in large iron retorts at 1,000° and obtained about 6½ parts of metallic sodium. The reaction proceeds more easily than with carbon or iron alone, and the decomposition of the NaHO proceeds according to the equation: 3NaHO + C = Na2CO3 + 3H + Na. Subsequently, in 1891, aluminium was prepared by electrolysis (see Chapter XVII.), and metallic sodium found two new uses; (1) for the manufacture of peroxide of sodium (see later on) which is used in bleaching works, and (2) in the manufacture of potassium and sodium cyanide from yellow prussiate (Chapter XIII., Note 12).