CRAZY ABOUT LABS

The alkali metals are very reactive metals that can react with a lot of materials, including water. The reaction that takes place, when we are using sodium, is:

Na(s)  + H2O(l)                   NaOH(aq) + ½ H2(g)

and when we are using potassium:

K(s)  + H2O(l)                    KOH(aq) + ½ H2(g)

In this experiment we wanted to see if the alkali metals react with water and which metal is more reactive: Sodium or Potassium? In the water we added phenolphthalein, in order to detect the production of the alkaline solution, by observing the colour of the indicator.