video tutorial Make solid sodium ethoxide

Name: video tutorial - Make solid sodium ethoxide
Uploaded: 2025-12-11T09:03:44.082Z
Duration: 5 min 11 s
Description: As always work quickly with sodium because it tends to rapidly react with atmospheric...Dry the sodium and make sure it's free of mineral oil from storage.

Goal: prepare solid sodium ethoxide from sodium metal and ethanol for use as a strong base in organic reactions.
Setup: 100 ml ethanol in a dry 500 ml flask with a reflux condenser; initial heating not required, but reflux will be needed later.
Reactants: 10 g sodium metal cut into small, dry chunks free of mineral oil.
Procedure: add sodium to ethanol (condenser temporarily removed during addition, then replaced); hydrogen gas evolves and mixture heats; ethanol refluxes; after ~40 minutes the liquid is viscous; heat for another ~30 minutes to ensure complete reaction; liquid turns light yellow.
Distillation: set up for simple distillation with vacuum to aid removal; ethanol distills rapidly and solids deposit on the sides; crust forms as solution saturates.
Drying: apply vacuum briefly to create a drying foam; repeat to form a stable, highly porous surface for drying; leave vacuum on for ~45 minutes with gentle heat to remove residual ethanol.
Recovery: ~75 mL of ethanol recovered; ~20 mL added during reflux to speed reaction.
Product: solid sodium ethoxide obtained, ~24 g; ~80% yield based on sodium metal; cream-colored, may contain small amounts of sodium hydroxide; strong base; handle carefully; does not violently react with water.
Note: product ready for use in subsequent reactions.