A video (just finished watching it) where another hobby scientist makes some high-purity 1,4-dioxane from ethylene glycol antifreeze and drain-cleaner grade concentrated sulfuric acid, to condense the glycol with itself and form the cyclic diether 1,4-dioxane, a useful solvent, with a particularly nifty electrolysis-free method of preparing sodium metal and presumably other alkali metals using caustic soda and magnesiothermic reduction of it, breaking up the cement-like sodium dispersal in magnesium oxide slag to powder and then boiling it in dioxane which happens to have the perfect set of properties to enable the sodium metal to be freed and coalesced into big pieces. I so cannot WAIT to try this myself on both sodium hydroxide, and I also picked up about a kilo or two of potassium hydroxide a while back, and think I'll try a crucible or three or four full of such a mixture with the same process using the 1,4-dioxane using potassium hydroxide too, and try make myself a nice big jar full of potassium metal, stored, of course, carefully, under dried heavy mineral oil.
I've seen the videos of this guy doing it, and its amazing the results he gets, no fiddly electrolysis, a nice protective blanket of inert solvent over the Na as its formed, air excluded by the dioxane vapors, and as such no catching fire in the air, easy reclamation of the valuable metals, and the dioxane recyclable by distillation, being dried in the process by the leftovers.
(the dioxane from antifreeze part)
(the sodium refinement, he produces the Na/MgO aggregate by igniting a mixture of NaOH and excess magnesium powder)
Absolutely brilliant.
This is something that can be done at home easily, and with very simple glassware (enough to set up a still, to distill the dioxane and several flasks to fractionate off low-boiling impurities like acetaldehyde) needing flasks, a condenser and water pump like a pond-pump to supply water to the condenser, hotplate, concentrated sulfuric acid drain cleaner (I've seen many of these with concentrations ranging between 96% H2SO4 and 98%), as well as undiluted ethylene glycol, for which he uses antifreeze of the non-readymixed, concentrate kind, which is more or less just ethylene glycol and dye, plus likely traces of bitrex to discourage people drinking it and being poisoned) plus sodium hydroxide (lye, caustic soda) and some easily made sodium-magnesium oxide aggregate, used in crude unrefined form to dry the dioxane) with a hotplate/stirrer and stirbar.) For the latter, magnesium powder, some Mg ribbon to light the mixture and sodium hydroxide (solid is used not solutions for the NaOH of course)
The glassware he uses is basic indeed, and can be had on ebay, enough for a simple still like is used there for maybe 15-25 dollars for the condenser, cheaper if you get lucky, and flasks for $12-20-25 or so, of course bigger ones are more expensive. Plus a couple of still-heads to connect the two flasks to the condenser, which can be picked up from anywhere between $5-6 if you get lucky to $15 or 20.
After this guy, nurdrage, came up with this electroless sodium metal production method it absolutely set the hobbyist chemistry communities online on fire (figuratively speaking, I mean, it really kicked the hornets nest for celebrations all over the show.), guy is a good scientist and done some excellent videos, from sodium, to dioxane, to cyanide salts, and all sorts of other stuff, doing a fantastic job, taking what previously took much engineering work to build your own electrolytic cells, which are demanding projects, can be quite finnicky and need a lot of practice in operating to be gained through experience, making sodium, potassium production etc. a kind of bottleneck-ed project, skill wise, and he hasn't just thrown open the door, but dynamited such obstacles back into the stone age, leaving the way wide for all to follow who wish to:) Well, more stuffed the way with a fuckton of sodium and dropped half the atlantic ocean on top of same
Nurdrage is...well no other words for it, a genius for coming up with this electroless method, that even were I neurotypical, if I'd seen that video at age 10, I could have followed it and performed the process, and gotten Na metal out at the other end. Not done it yet, I still need to make my 1,4-dioxane and purify it. But I've plenty concentrated sulfuric acid and a gallon or so of undiluted antifreeze, thats just ethylene glycol, pinkish dye and bitrex traces, and of course am no stranger to knowing how to set up a distillation apparatus and run it. Got magnesium dust, sodium (and potassium) hydroxides and Mg ribbon to serve to ignite the hydroxide/Mg dust mixture, and crucibles to do it in (he used something like an empty soup can)
(a word of caution if anyone here is up for doing it though-in the case of LITHIUM metal in particular, it may not be suitable to do the process with dioxane in glass because I have read that unlike potassium, sodium, rubidium or caesium, molten lithium metal eats through glass. Perhaps because of its small ionic radius, wonder if it can migrate through the glass and replace sodium ions, weakening it..not sure why it attacks glass and I've never actually tested it but all the same, its worth knowing beforehand, although Li is the least violent in reactivity of all the alkali metals, it does have a handful of uniquely different properties to the others in some respects)
