sodium truck engine valve would explode when thrown into water?

Question

when I was about 12 and fishing on a pond some much bigger boys than me would bring sodium valves with a hole drilled in the valve and throw them into the pond, minutes later they exploded and fish floated to the top and they swam out to get them, now this was 45 years ago as memory serves me.????

Answer 1

Tony has overlooked something, which is the fact that the sodium-water reaction is highly exothermic; that is, it produces lots of heat. So the liberated hydrogen would almost certainly burn with the oxygen in the air, as well, if any of the sodium was exposed to ambient air. Usually, when something like this is done, the sodium is put in an oil-filled container, so that the oil leaks out gradually as the water leaks in, until the increasing gas pressure blows out all the rest of the oil and the sodium really gets busy. Sometimes if you throw a tiny bit of sodium onto water, it will not sink because it is liberating enough hydrogen on its bottom to 'levitate' off the surface of the water.

Don't ask me how I know this, but a cubic foot of sodium, when thrown into the pool of water in the bottom of an abandoned stone quarry, will sent up flames about twelve stories high, and cause an explosion loud enough to be heard several miles away.

Answer 2

Sodium (Na) is a highly reactive metal that has the consistency of hard butter. If thrown in water, it reacts with the oxygen in the H2O and it liberates hydrogen gas. Na will combine with the oxygen to form sodium oxide and the hydrogen will simply escape into the air.