• Question: Have there ever been a legitimate test for francium reacting with water?

    Asked by to John, Del, Catherine on 12 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: John Foster

      John Foster answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      Hi,
      You may have seen Sodium reacting with water if your science teacher has demonstrated this with you. It moves around the surface of the water very quickly and you get a bright flash of light as well. I thought this experiment was amazing when I was in school!

      However, as far as I am aware there has never been a recorded experiment using Francium. Firstly, Francium is REALLY rare! It is radioactive and it breaks down into other elements very quickly. It was discovered in France in 1939 by a French physicist called Marguerite Perey. There are thought to be only 30 grams of it on the Earth at one time.

      So if you could find some of and keep it long enough to put in water what would happen? Scientists have actually tried the experiment with Caesium and reacts so violently that is can smash the container the water is held in. Based on the violence of the reaction increasing as you go down the periodic table of the group 1 elements, you could imagine that the reaction would be much more violent than Caesium!

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