[Sophia7X]

This video shows how you can merge potassium together into a bigger sphere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkajgxVbyI

I tried this with sodium except it did not work. The video shows potassium in mineral oil with a few drops of a tertiary alcohol being heated on a plate with the stirring on (no stirring bar). Since potassium is paramagnetic, they spun by themselves and this caused them to merge into a nice sphere.
When I used sodium, it didn't spin at all-- isn't sodium paramagnetic and pretty similar to potassium so why would this occur? I used a mixture of heavy and light mineral oil, and used tert-butyl alcohol to reduce the surface tension.

[discodermolide]

This video shows how you can merge potassium together into a bigger sphere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkajgxVbyI

I tried this with sodium except it did not work. The video shows potassium in mineral oil with a few drops of a tertiary alcohol being heated on a plate with the stirring on (no stirring bar). Since potassium is paramagnetic, they spun by themselves and this caused them to merge into a nice sphere.
When I used sodium, it didn't spin at all-- isn't sodium paramagnetic and pretty similar to potassium so why would this occur? I used a mixture of heavy and light mineral oil, and used tert-butyl alcohol to reduce the surface tension.

Firstly this type of experiment is very dangerous. You must be inexperienced or you would not have said that they used t-butyl alcohol to reduce the surface tension. So I would recommend that you do not do this. Anyway,
Why did they use tBuOH?
What is the difference between Na and K?

[Sophia7X]

Yes, I understand that it's dangerous but I want chunks of sodium for an activity. However, my teacher has limited amount of sodium chunks and I don't want to waste any, but a lot of tiny bits of sodium that he won't mind me using. Also, I'm doing this under his supervision.
When I tried this with sodium, the tiny bits actually got smaller and shinier as the oxide layer was cleaned off. In the video, it said that the t-butyl alcohol  cleaned and reduced the surface tension of the potassium.

Sodium does have a higher melting point than potassium,  so maybe I need to heat it more strongly? Haven't done this in awhile, my sodium bits are still sitting in the fume hood.

[discodermolide]

Yes, I understand that it's dangerous but I want chunks of sodium for an activity. However, my teacher has limited amount of sodium chunks and I don't want to waste any, but a lot of tiny bits of sodium that he won't mind me using. Also, I'm doing this under his supervision.
When I tried this with sodium, the tiny bits actually got smaller and shinier as the oxide layer was cleaned off. In the video, it said that the t-butyl alcohol  cleaned and reduced the surface tension of the potassium.

Sodium does have a higher melting point than potassium,  so maybe I need to heat it more strongly? Haven't done this in awhile, my sodium bits are still sitting in the fume hood.

Actually the alcohol reacts with the potassium to give KO^tBu and H₂. In the case of Na you will need to warm it up so that the Na melts, MPt. 97-98°C. Na is not as reactive as K so it may be better to use isopropanol..