• Question: why is caesium so reactive to water and oxygen

    Asked by petrolhead918spyder to Olivia, Leonie, Joe, James, Anna on 11 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Joe Spencer

      Joe Spencer answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      Casesium is a group 1 element, from the alkali earth metals, including sodium, lithium and Francium.
      These elements react with water and moisture in air to produce an alaki of the material (Caesium Hydorxide) and explosive hydrogen gas, this is a very exothermic reaction, producing heat and igniting the hydrogen gas causing the explosions.

    • Photo: James Pope

      James Pope answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      Hi Petrolhead,
      I have enjoyed your questions today, lots on vehicles, speed and explosions!

      Think Joe has covered the answer, I always loved it when we did these experiments in school with these elements being stored in oil so they couldn’t react with the moisture in the air and start fires!

      Rubidium is quite cool, it is in this group but unlike all the others sinks as it reacts so spits water out of the flask you put it in, Caesium just breaks the container!

    • Photo: Olivia Lynes

      Olivia Lynes answered on 12 Mar 2015:

      Caesium is more reactive than anything else in group 1 because of the way it’s electrons are set up. If you imagine at the centre of caesium atom it has a nucleus as a ball it’s surrounded by lots of balls spinning around it in orbits, like the rings around Saturn. On the outermost ring there is only one electron spinning, and electrons prefer to be in pairs. So Caesium is more than happy to give up it’s electron when water or oxygen comes along. That’s why it reacts so quickly.

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