I was once making a sodium amalgam (this is where you dissolve sodium metal in mercury to give a solid mixture of the two – amalgams are popular in dentistry!!) Dissolving sodium in mercury is highly exothermic and I added too much…the result was the amalgam exploded all over my fumehood.
Because we were doing the experiment in a fume hood and because I was wearing safety equipment everything was ok…I did get a bit of a surprise!!
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