The wide reach of corrosion, a multitrillion-dollar global problem, may someday be narrowed considerably thanks to a new, better approach to predict how metals react with water. The wide reach of ...

When a small piece of sodium is placed in a petri dish with water and phenolphthalein, the sodium becomes a molten ball and darts around the dish, leaving a pink trail. The reactions of potassium, ...

One of the most hotly pursued areas of green energy technology is the search for an economical and practical method of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. The main target product, hydrogen, is a ...

Gallium’s quirky liquid-state properties have pushed that element into the scientific spotlight recently, as researchers have tapped the liquid metal for applications in stretchable electronics and ...

The Inverse Leidenfrost Effect flips one of physics’ most familiar reactions on its head. Instead of water skittering and ...

Even if you slept your way through high school chemistry, there was typically one day that ensured you were awake. That’s when, after an extensive safety lecture, the teacher brought out the alkali ...

The spontaneity of redox reactions is demonstrated using copper, zinc, and silver, and their cations. When solid zinc is placed in Cu2+ solution, the blue color of the solution becomes less intense as ...

The humble stir bar is a ubiquitous workhorse of the chemistry lab that has swirled its way into researchers’ hearts. But it seems that magnetic stirrers have also been mixing things up in a different ...

Lights, camera, kaboom! With snapshots from a high-speed camera, chemists can finally explain why sodium and other alkali metals blow up in water. “What we found out is that there’s a crucial piece of ...