Reaction of Magnesium and Water (Mg + H2O)
The reaction of Magnesium metal and Water comes up quite frequently in chemistry. In this video we'll look at the reaction of Mg with liquid (l) water. If water is a gas (g) the products will be a bit different.
When we put clean Magnesium ribbon in water bubbles will start to form after a while. It is a very slow reaction, but you can see the bubbles on the metal. These bubbles are Hydrogen (H2) gas. The total reaction is:
Mg (s) + 2H2O (l) = Mg(OH)2 (s) + H2 (g)
Note that the Mg(OH)2 is a solid. That is because Magnesium hydroxide is insoluble in water. In this case it forms a sort of coating on the Mg metal that slows the reaction down.
If we were to use steam (water in the form of a gas) we could get:
Mg (s) + H2O (l) = MgO (s) + H2 (g)
Overall, it's not a very exiting reaction. You could collect the H2 gas and light it on fire which can be interesting. But watching the Magnesium react with water isn't very interesting. Now if we put the Mg in some HCl .....
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