Answer to Question #290681 in Inorganic Chemistry for Kartik Dubey

Question

How Many types of reactions occur in liquid ammonia ?discuss any two in detail.

Answer 1

Liquid ammonia can serve a variety of purposes depending from reaction to reaction. Add sodium to it, the solution will turn blue. Add sodium to a larger excess of liquid ammonia, it'll turn brown. This happens due to many free electrons which are a by product of the reaction, as mentioned by another answer, which also lend the mixture colour and paramagnetism.

Due to the presence of free electrons, it also acts as a very good reducing agent. In fact, sodium in liquid ammonia is used in the reduction of alkynes to get trans- alkenes specifically. The reaction is also known as Birch reduction.

The compound formed when you add sodium, sodamide (NaNH2) has other purposes too. It is a very strong base and is used in multiple reactions in organic chemistry. It could sometimes be mentioned under the heading of Na in liquid NH3.