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Sodium amalgam is a by-product of chlorine made by mercury cell electrolysis. In this cell, brine (concentrated sodium chloride solution) is electrolysed between a liquid mercury cathode and a titanium or graphite anode. Chlorine is formed at the anode, while sodium formed at the cathode dissolves into the mercury, making sodium amalgam.
The mercury is the cathode, where sodium is produced and forms an amalgam with the mercury. The amalgam is continuously drawn out of the cell and reacted with water which decomposes the amalgam into sodium hydroxide, hydrogen and mercury. The mercury is recycled into the electrolytic cell. Chlorine is produced at the anode and bubbles out of ...
Sodium amalgam is produced as a byproduct of the chloralkali process and used as an important reducing agent in organic and inorganic chemistry. With water, it decomposes into concentrated sodium hydroxide solution, hydrogen and mercury, which can then return to the chloralkali process anew.
The sodium–mercury amalgam flows to the center cell, where it reacts with water to produce sodium hydroxide and regenerate the mercury. Mercury cell electrolysis, also known as the Castner–Kellner process, was the first method used at the end of the nineteenth century to produce chlorine on an industrial scale.
The Castner–Kellner process is a method of electrolysis on an aqueous alkali chloride solution (usually sodium chloride solution) to produce the corresponding alkali hydroxide, [1] invented by American Hamilton Castner and Austrian Carl Kellner in the 1890s.
Sodium amalgam [9] or samarium(II) iodide/HMPA [10] may be used to convert β-sulfonyloxy or β-acyloxy sulfones to the corresponding alkenes. The key mechanistic step of this process is elimination of an anionic or organometallic intermediate to generate the alkene. (6)
Modern production methods produce Cl 2 and NaOH/KOH from the electrolysis of brine using a Nafion membrane between half-cells. Before the use of Nafion, industries used mercury containing sodium amalgam to separate sodium metal from cells or asbestos diaphragms to allow for transfer of sodium ions between half cells; both technologies were ...
Sodium amalgam is a common reducing agent in organic synthesis, and is also used in high-pressure sodium lamps. Mercury readily combines with aluminium to form a mercury-aluminium amalgam when the two pure metals come into contact. Since the amalgam reacts with air to give aluminium oxide, small amounts of mercury corrode aluminium.