[skatebiker]

In some chemistry textbooks is stated that heating Na2CO3 with charcoal to 1100oC makes sodium metal. By the end of the 19th century is was even a commercial process.

Na2CO3 (liquid) + 2 C (solid) → 2 Na (vapor) + 3 CO (gas).

Did somebody do this on a lab scale ? One can capture the Na vapor under mineral oil.

[Arkcon]

Wow.  So many questions come to mind ...  Does carbon really have the theoretical reducing power?  I'll have to look that up.  So you've got it to 1100 C, I'm guessing in a vacuum?  And you end up with Na vapor and CO vapor (cute trick, CO is also a reducing agent, but a good enough one?)  What sort of vessel do you use, not glass or ceramic, maybe metal?  At those high temperatures, even without oxygen, mineral oil is going to break down, or am I wrong?  Am I just prejudiced against people in the 1800's that they wouldn't have the technology needed?

[Borek]

I doubt this mineral oil part. I suppose what they did was to collect liquid Na from some iron condenser. At least that sounds doable.

Am I just prejudiced against people in the 1800's that they wouldn't have the technology needed?

Yes you are

[Arkcon]

I asked the Wikipedia article for a citation, and someone wrote it in.  that was nice of them, it's nice to see someone really cares about the chemical articles on Wikipedia, since we tend to refer to it so often around here.

[skatebiker]

I asked the Wikipedia article for a citation, and someone wrote it in.  that was nice of them, it's nice to see someone really cares about the chemical articles on Wikipedia, since we tend to refer to it so often around here.

I googled around and found more hits about the old process.
According to this link:
http://www.crct.polymtl.ca/equiweb.php

you fill in 1 mole Na2CO3 plus 2 moles C and a temperature of 1100oC yields metallic Na in the equilibrium.

Moreover I tried it out a few years ago by heating dehydrated Na2CO3 with powdered charcoal in a steel tube of 2.5 cm diameter and 10cm long with a propane burner.
I saw yellow sparks / tips coming out of the vessel which means Na vapor was escaping. I had no (safe) facility to capture the sodium vapor.

[hmx9123]

In many cases, it's not the carbon that reduces, but the carbon monoxide that the incomplete combustion of the carbon produces.  Wow, that rhymed!

[mnakhla]

this maybe possible....but why go through all that hassle to make sodium...well granted that that method will probably give you purer sodium then the method im about to state ...ive done this at home...just take a lithium battery remove the 1 foot long strip of lithium metal from inside it....you have to open it and becareful not to let the strip of lithium and the strip of iron sulfide touch or eles you get alot of heat and the lithium might ignite...just peal the outer casing off using needle nose pliers (sp?) after you get the lithium out just wrap some lithium around some sodium chloride and ignite it , it will flare up and strip the cl of the na and you will see this orange glow coming from underneath the now lithium oxide/chloride/nitride wrap once you see that, or when part of the wrap melts off ..just throw it or let it drip into the mineral oil... after it cools remove the black chared remains and you can then take the little bulbs of sodium and flatten them into strips and put them back into the oil....it obviously also works with k , mg ,ca, and any other metal....even cs....but i wouldnt try to get cs from cscl in this way as that would be a death wish... calcium from caocl powder makes very nice marble sized lumps of calcium and it can be used to make alloys such as NaK ..ive also made NaK this way