Scientists have even caught this reaction on high-speed video, capturing the blast and explaining why ... the sodium releases electrons — negatively charged particles — leaving the element ...

In this video excerpt from NOVA's "Hunting the Elements," New York Times technology columnist David Pogue investigates chemical reactions involving sodium. Find out how the electron configuration ...

Technically, any nucleus with 11 protons is sodium. The periodic table, after all, organizes the elements by the number of protons in their nuclei, and sodium is element number 11. That says ...

The reason has to do with why the seas are salty. Sodium is a light element that ionizes easily, giving up one of its electrons. In a battery, those ions shuttle back and forth between two ...

Sodium is a much more abundant element that is less complicated to extract ... As for supply, this is still virtually non-existent, which is why it's important to get factories like the one ...