I have 99.9% pure (Sigma) sodium cubes, and I want to prepare atomically clean sodium surface from these cubes. First, I pressed these cubes into a sheet by removing oil layer from it, and then sodium discs were obtained by this sheet but problem is that this surface is not clean, so what are the procedures to achieve these high purity sodium discs.
Hi,
This seems to be a good procedure (you could probably skip to step 3 if you are content with foil thickness)
1. You can melt the sodium in oil (as seen in the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRoHeVqDlfg)
2. pour the molten Na on to polypropylene/teflon block and sandwich using another block to create a foil of required thickness.
3. Once cooled, clean surface repeatedly with hexane and then let foil dry in vacuum chamber of a glove box.
4. punch foil before use. As this Na foil would be very reactive despite being in a glove box, it would be best to use all prepared foils in a day or two.
hope it helps!!
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