Sodium oxide

Sodium oxide (SOX) is a chemical compound with the formula Na₂O. It is used in ceramics and glasses, though not in a raw form. It is the base anhydride of sodium hydroxide, so when water is added to sodium oxide NaOH is produced.

The alkali metal oxides M₂O (M = Li, Na, K, Rb) crystallise in the antifluorite structure. In this motif the positions of the anions and cations are reversed relative to their positions in CaF₂, with sodium ions tetrahedrally coordinated to 4 oxide ions and oxide cubically coordinated to 8 sodium ions.

Preparation

Sodium oxide is produced by the reaction of sodium with sodium hydroxide, sodium peroxide, or sodium nitrite:

Most of these reactions rely on the reduction of something by sodium, whether it is hydroxide, peroxide, or nitrite.

Burning sodium in air will produce Na₂O and about 20% sodium peroxide Na₂O₂.

Alternatively, sodium carbonate can be heated to 851 °C, producing carbon dioxide and sodium oxide.

At 208 °C, sodium ascorbate will decompose to furan derivatives and sodium oxide.

Mineral water

Mineral water is water from a mineral spring that contains various minerals, such as salts and sulfur compounds. Mineral water may be effervescent (i.e., "sparkling") due to contained gases.

Traditionally, mineral waters were used or consumed at their spring sources, often referred to as "taking the waters" or "taking the cure," at places such as spas, baths, or wells. The term spa was used for a place where the water was consumed and bathed in; bath where the water was used primarily for bathing, therapeutics, or recreation; and well where the water was to be consumed.

In modern times, it is far more common for mineral water to be bottled at the source for distributed consumption. Travelling to the mineral water site for direct access to the water is now uncommon, and in many cases not possible (because of exclusive commercial ownership rights). There are more than 3,000 brands of mineral water commercially available worldwide.

Locations

Active tourist centres have grown up around many mineral water sites since ancient times, such as Rogaška Slatina (Slovenia), Radenci (Slovenia), Rionero in Vulture (Italy), Piešťany (Slovakia), Hisarya (Bulgaria), Bílina (Czech Republic), Vichy (France), Birštonas (Lithuania), Jermuk (Armenia), Yessentuki (Russia), Kislovodsk (Russia), Spa (Belgium), Sodere (Ethiopia), Krynica-Zdrój (Poland), Sulphur Baths (Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia), Bath (England), Khorog (Tajikistan), or Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic). In Romania, a country enjoying a privileged position as home to over one-third of the European mineral and thermal springs, resorts developed since antiquity in places such as Băile Herculane, Geoagiu or Slănic. Tourist development resulted in spa towns and hydropathic hotels (often shortened to "hydros").

Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico (Spanish: Golfo de México) is an ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent. as well as Central America. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. The U.S. states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida border the Gulf on the north, which are often referred to as the "Third Coast" in comparison with the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts, or sometimes the "south coast", in juxtaposition to the Great Lakes region being the "north coast."

The Gulf of Mexico formed approximately 300 million years ago as a result of plate tectonics. The Gulf's basin is roughly oval and is approximately 810 nautical miles (1,500 km; 930 mi) wide and floored by sedimentary rocks and recent sediments. It is connected to part of the Atlantic Ocean through the Florida Straits between the U.S. and Cuba, and with the Caribbean Sea (with which it forms the American Mediterranean Sea) via the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba. With the narrow connection to the Atlantic, the Gulf experiences very small tidal ranges. The size of the Gulf basin is approximately 1.6 million km² (615,000 sq mi). Almost half of the basin is shallow continental shelf waters. The basin contains a volume of roughly 2500 quadrillion litres (550 quadrillion Imperial gallons, 660 US quadrillion gallons, 2.5 million cu km or 600,000 cu mi).

Water

Water (chemical formula: H₂O) is a transparent fluid which forms the world's streams, lakes, oceans and rain, and is the major constituent of the fluids of organisms. As a chemical compound, a water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms that are connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at standard ambient temperature and pressure, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice; and gaseous state, steam (water vapor). It also exists as snow, fog, dew and cloud.

Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface. It is vital for all known forms of life. On Earth, 96.5% of the planet's crust water is found in seas and oceans, 1.7% in groundwater, 1.7% in glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, a small fraction in other large water bodies, and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of ice and liquid water suspended in air), and precipitation. Only 2.5% of this water is freshwater, and 98.8% of that water is in ice (excepting ice in clouds) and groundwater. Less than 0.3% of all freshwater is in rivers, lakes, and the atmosphere, and an even smaller amount of the Earth's freshwater (0.003%) is contained within biological bodies and manufactured products. A greater quantity of water is found in the earth's interior.

Sodium

Sodium /ˈsoʊdiəm/ is a chemical element with symbol Na (from Ancient Greek Νάτριο) and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silver-white, highly reactive metal. In the Periodic table it is in column 1 (alkali metals), and shares with the other six elements in that column that it has a single electron in its outer shell, which it readily donates, creating a positively charged atom - a cation. Its only stable isotope is ²³Na. The free metal does not occur in nature, but instead must be prepared from its compounds. Sodium is the sixth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, and exists in numerous minerals such as feldspars, sodalite and rock salt (NaCl). Many salts of sodium are highly water-soluble: sodium ions have been leached by the action of water from the earth's minerals over eons, so that sodium (and chlorine) are the most common dissolved elements by weight in the oceans.

Sodium was first isolated by Humphry Davy in 1807 by the electrolysis of sodium hydroxide. Many sodium compounds are useful, such as sodium hydroxide (lye) for soap-making and sodium chloride for use as a de-icing agent and a nutrient (edible salt).