NaK

NaK - the alloy of Sodium and Potassium - is notorious among chemists. But it can be pumped in an ingenious way.
Featuring Professors Steve Howdle and Martyn Poliakoff.
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[@chrismusix5669]

You guys really have a nak for chemistry.

[@WL-ky6yz]

Dayum…

[@Mineav]

+Chris Musix I don't see what you did there. I don't see it at all.

[@strengthman600]

*NaK

[@brucecoulda1596]

I found your "reaction" very humorous.

[@magadzhabraftw6157]

*Na* I don't see what you did there

[@Dronebertios_World]

So you're telling me they built a sodium potassium pump?

[@xander1052]

yep

[@keyboard_toucher]

when you just skim the biology textbook

[@M3au]

Did they destroy it with digoxin?

[@Kumquat_Lord]

@Nicolas Broszky I thought so, but thanks for confirming

[@aryabarlam2881]

@Nicolas Broszky Sodium-Potassium ion pump would be the biological process... They made a Sodium-Potassium alloy "pump", from what I've seen it's not really a similar process because they both pump differently. Although, it's very fascinating to contrast them. I've never really heard of a NaK alloy until now, granted I've only been in my 2nd year of Chemistry.

[@GBftw]

If I were choosing a uni to do chemistry at I would partly base my decision on how unsafe an experiment I was allowed to do. If I caught fire on the campus tour I would pick that uni for sure.

[@AldoSchmedack]

Ditto. Have to learn somehow!

[@MadScientist267]

Learning is being cut off at the knees by that very concept. It's really a shame that the "answer" to the problem isn't to get rid of the idiots that can't handle it, but to instead get rid of the materials that the idiots can't handle.

[@theyoten1613]

Someone at my school was drying some superflamable liquid. Blew, like, 20 windows and wrecked a car on the street below. They found the door of the drying chamber embeded in in the next room's wall.

[@jacobkudrowich]

@@theyoten1613 yea sure they did ...

[@royriley6282]

We deal with this at my uni, people with parasitical nonresearch nonteaching positions dictate to working scientists what is safe despite having less understanding than the scientists they dictate to. All this does is reduce training in how to make experiments safe and so, ultimately, reduce safety.

[@Guru_1092]

Ahh yes. The ol' "too many cooks spoil the broth" issue. Prevalent within almost every major university and company.

[@Purwapada]

. yep its ridiculous beyond belief

[@seekbalance6891]

aside from the risk of accidents, there's also a security risk if someone steals dangerous materials, or if vandals damage the apparatus.

[@jacobkudrowich]

@@seekbalance6891 that's just silly

[@TVFILMBUFF]

"Destroyed"... uh huh. Let's not ask Steve what that bubbling noise is coming from his basement.

[@AceandDuce]

That's his potion making setup

[@thomashowdle5003]

We don't have a basement 😂😂

[@TVFILMBUFF]

Thomas Howdle Steve's son? I got ya. No basement. *wink*wink*nudge*nudge*saynomore*dontlookintheattic*

[@palebluedot7435]

+TVFILMBUFF #conspiracy

[@MadScientist267]

I seriously hope one of them still has it and demonstrates it to those that can handle the responsibility

[@ghffrsfygdhfjkjiysdz]

I think I just found my next GPU cooling system.

[@SG14ever]

+Igor Petrusky Danamics makes a liquid metal CPU cooler.

[@fss1704]

btw, now i'm using an old refrigerator pump with a radiator and butane as a coolant, that thing reaches 2DegC easy, if you want some real cooling system try that.

[@isaacroebuck9514]

GTX 480 problems?

[@larrygall5831]

@@isaacroebuck9514 You mean _RX_ -480?

[@larrygall5831]

@@fss1704 That is fascinating. Do you just use it in a loop, or do you use an orifice valve / capillary to make a low pressure side? Basically, use the "water block" as an evaporator.. I'd love to see a picture of this.

[@mediaguardian]

It would be interesting to see 1) how the NaK alloy was created and 2) the process used to seal it in the apparatus without exposing to air.

[@jacobkudrowich]

It's created by combining molten sodium and potassium under mineral oil or kerosene. Pulled into an argon flushed syringe and placed into an argon flushed test tube or apparatus then sealed as any other apparatus or ampule would be. Not very exciting .

[@scenekidzz2345]

Replying to an old comment, but I use NaK in my lab to purify gases. It’s quite remarkable how it’s made. You literally take potassium metal and sodium metal and you touch them together. They legit just melt together. Of course done in an atmosphere of nitrogen or argon.

[@SharpAssKnittingNeedles]

Glove box my dude

[@ericlotze7724]

@@SharpAssKnittingNeedles or a schlenk line

[@SharpAssKnittingNeedles]

@@ericlotze7724 suffering the misery of a glove box I am sadly not blessed to experience a schlenck system. We work so weird in dry labs

[@PiercingSight]

"I need to demonstrate something really quick. I think I'll just grab some of my award trophies and use those." Yep, that's Sir Martyn for ya.

[@sarowie]

in the company I used to worked for we saved historic pieces by getting the management approval for destruction and then bringing it to an unspecified "disposal company". At the end of it, it was in a private basement. Management of course did not know but also not care as it was out of the way. Of course, in this case they must prove that the NaK gets disposed safely at with all papers, but the pump it self could be "disposed" by bringing it to a "metal scrapper" but never arriving there.

[@Ryan6.022]

And that's the story of how I got a lot of stuff from my community college. I knew the maintenance man disposing of the stuff and also had a friend with a recycling company. Long story short not everything marked for disposal made it there.

[@Badmuthaa]

It's truly unfortunate that science is being limited these days. At our school my chemistry and biology teachers told us about experiments they used to do that were really fun. But now we can't do them because of "safety reasons". If no one gets hurt and care is taken why not do them? Proper handling of dangerous chemicals never hurt anyone, just as the professor said with the liquid sodium.

[@TheMohawkNinja]

Moeyz69 I don't know where you live, but I've played with ammonia, NaOH and sulfuric acid before in chemistry. Not to mention that while I didn't handle it myself (which was more so due to the heavy metal container it was in, more so than the chemical), I've been around liquid nitrogen in a chemistry lab. There was also this one time when one of the chemistry professors decided to set of some gun cotton without telling any of us... that was fun.

[@TheHuesSciTech]

Moeyz69 I agree entirely. It's worth noting however that NaK is particularly nasty stuff -- even liquid sodium will actually solidify at some point, the solid metal isn't flammable by itself. NaK can catch fire on contact with air, and who knows how you put it out (I mean, it'll just catch fire when the extinguisher clears out). And let's hope the water sprinklers don't activate! So I'm torn, keeping the experiment and destroying the experiment are both unacceptable options.

[@sarowie]

TheHue's SciTech removing the NaK and putting the pump it self on display with a video display in the background would be the sensible course of action.

[@kasnitch]

TheMohawkNinja hear you on that. our high school lab .. let alone university .. had tanks of Br , Cl, F , H, He, HCN & 02 gases. cannisters and jars of red and white phosphorus, Na and K probably 10+ lbs of it, plenty of Hg and many other chemicals you need special licenses for in the present day. None of the cabinets were locked, nor were the class room doors. Nobody blew up the lab or school, got poisoned or became an anarchist.

[@TheMohawkNinja]

kasnitch You specify present day. How long ago were you in high school and college?

[@alancordwell9759]

There's quite a lot of NaK apparently floating around in space. It was used as the coolant for the reactors that powered a number of Soviet satellites- called RORSATs; a total of 31 were launched between 1967 and 1988. When they reached their end of life, the satellites were sent up to a higher 'graveyard' orbit and the reactor core was ejected into space. In most cases, this process released the coolant which continues to orbit the Earth.

[@Nighthawke70]

The Sov's had NaK- or Sodium-cooled reactors on a few subs and power plants. They had a few accidents and "oops" incidents involving maintenance of the coolant loops. One or two reactors had to be literally disassembled due to someone shutting off the heaters and the metal coolant solidifying in the pipes, causing damage to the system. A couple of explosions due to sodium leaks forced the Sov's to discontinue using the liquid metal and settle for water/barium solutions in a PWR setup.

[@JanicekTrnecka]

That one that went solid was afaik cooled by molten Pb, and was planned as "one time use" yet the soviets decided to re-fuel it so they opened it up, refueled and reheated and revived the "frozen solid" parts of circuitry again.

[@SentientMeatbag]

Scientist A: "Hey, you know what this dangerous nuclear reactor could use? A coolant that burn in air and explodes in water!" Scientist B: "Hell, yeah! How about we run a water-filled pipe through it?" Scientist A: "Genius!"

[@theadammz4475]

RarelyEvil They have to use water to cool it.

[@SentientMeatbag]

The AdamMZ Yes, the water cools the coolant, but more importantly the coolant heats the water, turning it into steam. That steams drives a turbine to generate power.

[@ontariolacus]

RarelyEvil At least it doesn't react explosively with uranium or plutonium in the core, unlike water.

[@TheScientist40]

RarelyEvil Those were engineers, not scientists!

[@cosmonaut379]

you do know that's how the process works to heat the water right ? also what does it matter, metal is solid....

[@hilarysexton1343]

Oliver Sachs in his autobiography Uncle Tungsten described how he and his friends (young boys) contrived to get a lump of sodium the size of a loaf of bread. Naturally, they cycled to the local park and heaved it off the bridge into the duck pond with a predictable outcome. He did not say what happened to the ducks. Every boy dreams of this kind of chemistry. Glad to see your programs as you are able to do these things and neither man nor duck is harmed.

[@seahawk124]

Professors Steve Howdle looks like a young version of Martyn.

[@thomashowdle5003]

I'll tell him you said that 😂

[@masacatior]

He is the professors son!

[@luderickwong]

You can test that by Tom Jones song.

[@maximilianibel]

More like Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (aka Billy Wilder)

[@Marwie94]

Have you considered doing a subseries of chemical instruments and/or tecniques on this channel? Hearing the professors talking about MS, NMR, IR etc would be interesting!

[@rkan2]

"They got rid of it" - We want a video of the decision makers! :D

[@johnrhodes3350]

Where's that a wide angle lens

[@eddiewilbury1666]

Hello! I beg you to please activate spanish subtitles. Every hispanic kid and boy should see your videos. Thank you and greetings from Mexico.

[@glenwoofit]

Health and safety gone mad.

[@slugrag]

glenwoofit Not really. If it smashed I imagine people would die.

[@shrekdreck2429]

Doug Soutar I could imagine that glass turning into pretty good shrapnel. I do agree they should have just tried to make it safer though. They shouldn't have destroyed it.

[@lajoswinkler]

+LE/A Tyrone There was nothing dangerous about it. It's the nanny state imbecile politics that did it.

[@Dazzwidd]

It wouldn't explode because of a lack of oxygen available. It could blow a big flame out of the filler hole and singe all your eyebrows off however. Most likely a flame would ignite near the filler hole and stay there without doing much at all. Depends on air fuel vapour mixes

[@fss1704]

+Dazzwidd actually it could, that's just too much improbable. if there was a leak in the filling hole, the air would enter the flask and act as a jamjar jet for a few seconds until the amout of oxygen/air in the flask get to a cartain amount and temperature, then it would explode

[@johnjackson4511]

Wish we had this guy teaching chemistry when I was at school. I might have paid a bit more attention and spent less time washing sodium hydroxide out of my mouth.

[@BlackSakura33]

This is the best title I have seen on KZbin.

[@pamelazwolinska]

I had one week of winter break in my 1 year Bachelor of Science chemistry studies and used it for binge watching periodic videos

[@XD-ot1fy]

NaK is back, babyyyy! Game of the year!

[@monterraythehomeless]

An entire 3 copies sold, demonstrating the insane reach of donkey channel l

[@oicfas4523]

My brother is a chemist and when he was doing his PhD, they had another chemist in the lab nicknamed Char Dog. They had flasks of NaK in kerosene (if I remember right, it was something like that) all over the lab. One shattered and splashed him, he went to the eyewash station, which ignited the NaK and thus the kerosene that covered him. He had some scarring but was otherwise more or less okay.

[@troxexlot18]

Being blind is more or less okay?

[@oicfas4523]

@@troxexlot18 There was a huge black soot spot staining the wall and burned sections of ceiling at the eyewash station (and stayed there for.a while, not sure why). From the fire that engulfed and burned him. Yes, I think he would have chosen the much stronger emergency body shower or got help from fellow chemists there to look and remove any NaK on him. Had he known.

[@robertberry7194]

The best safety is solid working knowledge. If you cannot teach or work with something because it is "unsafe" then that in itself is creating the safety issue by lack of knowledge! Keep up the Excellent videos Professor!

[@becurieus1]

And the reason we like to use NaK in fast reactors is that it is basically transparent to neutrons. With things like water, neutrons end up bumping into them and slowing down or being absorbed quite a lot. With NaK, the absorption and bumping is pretty minimal. NaK was what we like to use in the west for fast reactors, while the Russian's favored using lead and lead-bismuth alloys. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, Lead might not react with the air like NaK, but it is super heavy and can also be corrosive at high temperatures and flow rates. Lead is also a solid at room temperature which means you have to worry about your coolant freezing and clogging things up. We favor NaK in the west as a result, even though it can be explosively reactive. Which is better is mostly a matter of what you are attempting to design for.

[@daanzoomer6193]

BeCurieus But why don't they use gallium?

[@shi01]

Daan Zoomer Because Gallium has a rather high neutron absorption cross section which is very bad for a fast breeder reactor. It actually would stop the nuclear fission process.

[@daanzoomer6193]

And this neutron absorption causes the gallium atoms to become a radioactive isotope?

[@becurieus1]

Daan Zoomer Neutrons are basically what keep the chain reaction going. If you lose to many, you can't have a reactor. So while it is also making the gallium radioactive, that isn't the REAL problem, the real problem is the reactor might not be as efficient or be work at all without higher enriched fuel. I don't have my chart in front of me, so I can't compare gallium to NaK, but that is one of the reasons NaK was chosen, is that it doesn't react with neutrons very much compared to other materials.

[@kansascityshuffle8526]

This channel has a NaK for producing interesting content.

[@jasondoe2596]

What an *awesome* device (and video)!

[@jasonslade6259]

Oh that is so cleaver. To make a NaK pump with magnets, I never would have thought of it.

[@ga5712]

I swear the health and safety bureaucrats will bring about the second dark ages 😒. How are we meant to inspire the next generation if all the interesting stuff can't be shown! Thank you for having the common sense to record it before it was disposed of.

[@drsolo7]

Only in america :)

[@link11913]

@@drsolo7 bruh, they're in the UK

[@drsolo7]

@@link11913 yes

[@BobTheFlyingPanda]

NaK is back baby

[@Supermario0727]

At first, I thought that this video was on a compound of sodium and potassium. That would be pretty cool, but very unlikely.

[@chickenonugget2269]

John Stuart a guy did it on youtube

[@chickenonugget2269]

he melted sodium metal and potassium powder trying to get potassium metal but got a sodium potassium alloy

[@Supermario0727]

That's not quite the same, though. That's more of a mixture. I mean an actual compound.

[@Chevroldsmobuiac]

Always heard of sodium-cooled reactors, but never understood the principle behind it... thanks!

[@mikesummers-smith4091]

I was once told a story of the Dounreay NaK experiment. Senior scientists explained to their masters that it would be highly desirable to ascertain what would happen if NaK coolant containment failed. Their arguments were persuasive, and their faces must have been deadpan. A bomber was loaded with something like a ton of NaK, which it dropped into the sea off the north coast of Scotland. As you can imagine, any British Unclear scientist who could think up a half-decent excuse to be present was standing on the cliffs.

[@Xerdoz]

Should be Natrium and Kalium. That's why the symbols are Na and K.

[@kenny.aviation7645]

That was the stupidest thing I've ever heard

[@prometheus5311]

In most other languages it is natrium and kalium actually.

[@nikolaristic9509]

+Kenny.49 in Slavic languages it's Natrium and Kalium

[@Citiesinmotionplayer]

English is actually an outlier on this one. Just like with "pineapple".

[@rufobass]

Nikola Ristić it's latin for christ's sake

[@s0nnyburnett]

A pump with no moving parts, beautiful. Still I'm amazed they never eventually had a leak with it, the consequences would be unfathomable. How would you even explain that to the fire crew?

[@SteveChisnall]

Another alloy that's liquid at room-temperature is a combination of Gallium, Indium, and Tin, which is sold under the commercial trade-name of Galinstan. It can be left exposed to ambient air without being hazardous to people, but unlike mercury, it wets glass (it sticks to glass) and porcelain, and human skin, which makes it almost as much of a hassle to handle as mercury's toxicity makes it to handle.

[@ErikAdalbertvanNagel]

have a mug of fresh NaK is the most epic way to start the morning

[@McMathwin]

This blew my mind. I've been on holidays too long, got me keen to go back to uni.

[@Spookieham]

Mechanical pumps where used with NAK in the reactors. If I recall they used cryogenics to freeze NAK and use the frozen NAK as a bearing surface. Clever but unreliable and leaks were common.

[@PointyTailofSatan]

It would be very interesting to find out what kind of metal piping could be used for NaK, as well as what could be used for piping gaskets.

[@handlesarefeckinstupid]

Inconel

[@tub3scr3am3r]

you know you're a badass prof when you use your trophies as props :)

[@gregkral4467]

I so love all your videos. Thank you all.

[@josea.9475]

I recently (bout 2 weeks ago) found this amazing channel and I feel it would be the perfect place to ask about oklo where several natural nuclear fission reactors were found. I was hoping you can do a video on that and maybe get the professors views on Nuclear power and its hopefully bright future?

[@DavieTait]

The Soviet era Russian Navy used "liquid" Sodium coolant in the reactors of the Alpha class SSN's in the 1970's which gave them huge power out of small reactors ( the Alpha class was the fastest ever built nuclear powered submarine at 47+ knots ( 54 mph ) but with the huge disadvantage of being heard by old sonar sets several thousand miles away , also the huge problem that they had to use a shore supplied steam feed to keep the Sodium liquid as once the Sodium cooled to a solid state the reactor was beyond being saved and had to be removed and scrapped

[@RealCadde]

"Too dangerous" Riiiiiight.. Stop fighting in wars then mr government man.

[@mduckernz]

Cadde Ah, but that's just it - they don't. They get us to do it instead. For many, they even get them to *want* to 😒

[@monkeyboy4746]

Excellent video, it is well made and stays on subject without straying.

[@mfbfreak]

There are types of coating you can apply to glass, to make it so gallium doesn't stick to it. That means, if you also introduce a little heating coil, you can safely make this apparatus using gallium as the liquid metal.

[@forcelightningcable9639]

That professor really has a knack for sodium and potassium.

[@carver3419]

My cousin, a retired chemical engineer for an oil company, told me they used NaK by the tankcar.

[@jdgrahamo]

I remember one day our chemistry teacher using a glass combustion tube which began to melt. He grabbed it off the desk and a lump of molten glass dropped onto his foot. As he was wearing sandals and socks at the time, it was quite amusing.

[@louistournas120]

There are a few metals that have a low mp. Gallium has been mentioned. Density 5.91 g/cm3. There is also Wood's metal. There is Gallinstan (gallium, indium, tin alloy) that you find in new thermometers.

[@GSGHenrietta]

I've seen that red and yellow magnet from inside the apparatus in another video where the professor is using it in a classroom demo! I like that magnet.

[@JanicekTrnecka]

I might have seen it too, probbably in liquid oxygen video.

[@KOZMOuvBORG]

The NaK fountain operates by using (reversed) MHD (MagnetoHydroDynamics) as a motor. Was wondering, to get better views of 'bangs' if NaK could be dropped while in an container filled with dense inert gas into water or have it bubbled in through a thin pipe underwater? Plain Na or K can be used, if apparatus is kept warm enough, if liquid contact is desired.

[@waedi73]

Malcolm Cecil and Jeff Daniels in one video ! That is very nice

[@hikingpete]

😱 Left hand rule! ... Over here we use the right-hand-rule. Thumb for current, fingers for magnetic field, and palm for force. It corresponds with the right-hand-rule for finding magnetic field caused by a current, where the thumb is again the current, and the curl of the fingers indicate the magnetic field. Is this another UK vs. North America thing? Also, I thought from the title that this must be a computerphile video, but checked the channel when I noticed the lowercase 'a'.

[@pklongutoobe]

First to comment who bothered to watch the video before commenting ;) The apparatus should have been kept, but with no NaK in it.

[@romulus2225]

Great video, I'm a chemist and I never even knew about NaK!!!

[@FreightmareFTW]

I didnt know it was possible for two elements of the same group to even bond, but i only took 1 general chemistry class 🤷‍♂️

[@epiphonedk]

Could you make a video explaining why two solid metals make a liquid alloy? Seems like a bit of a mystery to me.

[@iplayonmyxbox]

They sound very sour about the apparatus being deemed too dangerous 😂

[@Jeffrey314159]

4:09 Induction pump motors based on this principle, but not the same materials, were first invented by Einstein & Szilard to replace the toxic SuO2 in the refrigerators of the late 1920's

[@leonardopesaresi7170]

Great lecture sir Martyn. Hope to hear from you again the soonest. Leo and Sofia.

[@brfisher1123]

Like I said before: potassium contains the naturally occurring radioisotope 40K which means that NaK should theoretically already be SLIGHTLY radioactive :) I know that Martyn actually meant VERY radioactive like uranium and thorium; potassium itself isn't normally considered to be "radioactive" even though it actually is!

[@AndrewWilsonStooshie]

Why does a alloy of solid Na and solid K become liquid?

[@declan.fleming]

Andrew Wilson mixtures melt at a lower temperature than pure substances - same reason we put salt on the roads in winter. Both sodium and potassium have low melting points to start with so a mixture drops that melting point below room temp.

[@ScarletAssasin]

Andrew Wilson I am afraid that the answer is a rather complicated problem in thermodynamics very similar to the one that explains the liquid state of mercury. So the simplistic answer is that the melting point of the alloy is much lower than the ones of its parts,but its not a real answer.

[@WernerHeisenbergpapyrosy]

Andrew Wilson Magic!

[@berni8k]

Andrew Wilson Aloys of metals often have a lower melting point, perhaps because the different sized atoms have trouble sticking together as much. There are a few more exotic alloys that are liquid at room temp or close.

[@sarowie]

The explanation I have in mind, is that the "default case" is liquid. So, we start from liquid and go down in temperature. (which is also how the low melting point alloys get made - both metals get molten together and then cool down) Just like water + salt, Na + K have much more trouble "freezing" then the water or in this case Na and K on their own. I was and I am always fascinated by the Sn alloys. Sn allone has an achievable melting point for home use, but the fun start with Pb and/or Bi. Of course, both bismut and lead are toxic, but well... It is still amazing to see how the melting point goes below the boiling point of water.

[@EdgyNumber1]

could have wrapped a coil around it then upped the voltage to increase the force safely for the mercury. really interesting stuff, thanks for posting.

[@TDBoedy]

it would be nice to talk about the connection between temperature, re-activity and corrosion and how corrosive a substance is is actually relative to what it is contained in such as how a FliBe molten salt (though normally corrosive) can be managed inside a Hastelloy N or related alloy. o/

[@pthomgalaxy]

The professor casually uses two of his awards to explain some science 🤣 Truly a gentleman and a scholar

[@subramaniamchandrasekar1397]

Mercury does not need any pump to circulate in such situations. As a metal, Mercury expands inside the reactor and with one way valve in the circulation line, forced to move in one direction where it cooled by the heat exchanger. The more the reactor temperature, the faster mercury moves.

[@klaasdeboer8106]

It is funny how these two elements have different names in different languages, in Dutch sodium and potassium are called natrium and kalium.

[@romanchomenko2912]

Hi Sir Martyn I couldn't help laughing the compound NaK was chosen because very high heat capacity a little above Aluminium but the fast breeder reactors had problems of leaking under great pressure meaning the Nak just spontaneously combustion creating fires so that's the reason most of the Europeans had to close all there FBR programs. The only solution is to use D2O yes its expensive but safer even with a cloak of graphite surrounding the U238 blanket, the graphite slows the neutrons to bounce back into the blanket of U238 to produce Pu 239 .

[@Buttercannon]

UH OH, DID SOMEONE SAY NAAAAAAAAAAK????!?!!!!!!

[@Silverwind87]

HERE COMES THE MONEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

[@ahcripes7651]

NAK IS BACK BAYBEEEEEEEE

[@azoth8531]

NACK 2 BABY!!!!!!

[@octopushands6923]

Dunky go home bro you're drunk

[@morkryan8287]

It's a MASTAPEEEEEECE

[@ShonkyLegs]

Are the electrodes in actual contact with the NaK? Do the electrodes pierce the glass container? If so, how does the NaK effect the electrode tips? And if not, how does the current effect the system at all?

[@dejjal8683]

I think the Soviets used NaK in their nuclear subs. There was a major problem with the speed of cooling and the density change between output and input.

[@jordynlewellin9638]

I prefer right hand slap rule rather than left hand grip rule, because it can be related to the right hand grip rule, as the thumb is the current for both :)

[@Rutaraki]

NAK IS BACK BABYYYYYYY

[@bamitsben7882]

I love your videos keep up the good work!

[@siberianstuntman3344]

Backyard scientist had a video where he made a bullet out of NaK. It was pretty devestating

[@ninja_goose4360]

7:02 It was a NaK-t of vandalism

[@michaelbouhebent3895]

NAK2 BABYYYY COMPOUND OF DA YEAR

[@Croatilillious]

NaK IS BACK BABYYYY!!!

[@michaelschollhorn1811]

+Periodic Videos instead of NaK or Mercury you can use for example gallistan (68% Ga, 21% Indium, 11 Sn%)

[@michaelschollhorn1811]

it melts at -19ºC

[@keyboardwarrior2145]

Michael Schöllhorn I know, im answering a bit late. Gallistan has a very low surface tension, so it would stick to the pipes form a thin layer on the inside rather than flowing through

[@keyboardwarrior2145]

plus, as it has lager atoms, it is affected by radiation

[@SomeoneCommenting]

To pump the mercury you just need to put the electrodes higher, so that the mercury column is shorter, therefore, less heavy to lift. If the electrodes are kept at the base, it would be too much mercury to push up. Even with a little amount, gravity will try to balance the levels and it will keep running in the same way as the NaK one was doing. But the stream of mercury will not go up too high anyway.

[@kbee225]

Saw the template and thought this was a video of the old professor when he was younger.

[@NikolaosSkordilis]

Excellent, very informative video Professor!

[@yourneighbour5738]

You had me at the video title.

[@jasjfl]

This video is very apropos for me. I'm taking a summer physics course and we just started talking about magnetic fields today. We're told to use the right hand rule rather than the left. Now I'm curious if it's taught differently in the US vs. UK, or if it differs everywhere.

[@slikrx]

Wasn't there a proposed electricity generator that used NaK (or maybe just pure Na or K, I can't recall anymore) where you had the loop of liquid metal, and the magnetic field, but then hated it and used the heat to cause circulation around the loop, and used that to generate electricity?

[@Choonchy]

NaK IS BACK BABY

[@grantsillimanjr.6544]

have you guys done a video of thorium? and how people say its the power of the future.

[@a2rhombus2]

Next time: an alloy of gallium and potassium forms a green gelatinous solid :p

[@dusterdude238]

You could say Sir Poliakoff Has a Real "NAK" for this sort of thing : LOL Love Chemistry and Periodic Videos! Thanks :)

[@squelchedotter]

NaKNakNakNak

[@archangel3237]

You guys really have a NaK for this

[@wesleysull]

NAK 2 BABYYYYY!

[@SlurponMuhdickKillTheState]

Very sad this equipment was destroyed. Please build another one.

[@picobyte]

Question,2V@40A is 80Watt How did you got rid of that heat? Or did you run is short times to not get to much heat in that system? Like that mercury idea :D The multiple "motor" set works and at most needs external cooling to adsorb the heat produced in the mercury resistor. IT can be done dudes! When the set-up is really big it doesn't even need forced cooling well almost not,we still need some fans or .chiller to chill execs heat. after long runs. Big is as large as the jar that contains the original experiment.

[@CaptainCheezmo]

I was going to suggest if a higher temperature was used, gallium might be suitable, but as I recall, it wets glass, does it not?

[@cassiezomok344]

I just watched a video of a drop of this landing on water under inert atmosphere. It reacts, changes colour, then shockingly, goes transparent. I mean glass clear. I know Periodic Videos has a high speed camera. I would really like to see a better version of this.

[@patrickbo2045]

When will this compound evaporate? A bit of online research didn't give me a clue, making me believe it would somehow decompose when reaching a critical temperature?

[@xostler]

How do you get 2 elements right next to each other, that are extremely reactive too, to stick together??

[@ventu7907]

You stick both the k and the na in bowl containing non reactive mineral oil, then you melt the na and the k and mix them together with a glass stirring rod