Monday, January 20, 2014

Salt is breaking the rules of chemistry

Salt is a very normal compound that when sodium and chloride combine they from little cubes and all is well in salt land. Or so they thought......Salt can have dramatic changes when put under tremendous heat and pressure. When salt was crushed between two diamonds and then was shot with a laser. The structure changed dramatically and one sodium linked with three or even seven chlorine. Or two sodium atoms could link with three chlorine atoms. These new linkages can form new and exotic structures for our well known table salt. A scientist said that these extreme pressures can be found in stars and planets and this means that this could also be taking place in the universe as well. The sodium chloride usually forms an ionic bond but when put under extreme pressure they can form a metallic bond which means that electrons move from one atom to the next instead of just staying with one atom. This relates to chemistry because it talks about the bond of atoms and the different types and how it can change based upon the amount of pressure and heat that a compound is under. I never knew that salt could form different structures when put under different pressures this could be a major break through i think.



https://student.societyforscience.org/article/salt-bends-rules-chemistry

No comments:

Post a Comment