The Production of Sodium Hydride and Some of its Reactions

PARTIAL reaction of hydrogen with alkali metals was observed by Davy ( 4 ) in 1810 and Gay-Lussac and Thenard ( 7 ) in 1811. Hautefeuille and Troost (16 ) in 1874 came to the conclusion that sodium hydride must be Na 2 H, but their product was described as still possessing a metallic appearance. This would seem to indicate that they had a solution or mechanical mixture of the hydride and sodium which, under their experimental conditions, appeared to cease absorbing hydrogen at this composition. Sodium, under the proper conditions, will rapidly absorb an equivalent of hydrogen to yield a gray-to-white, saltlike crystalline powder according to the equation, Na + 1/2H 2 → NaH Holt ( 17 ) in 1903 described the preparation of sodium hydride. The reaction of hydrogen with sodium can be made to go to completion rapidly by several methods. Freudenberg and Kloepfer ( 6 ) described a process for the manufacture of sodium hydride in the dry way. To avoid ...