• Question: What chemicals react together the best.

    Asked by redd535muns6 to sandrarobertson, Rachel L, Nick L, Maria, Luke, Daniel, Caroline, Andrew on 16 Oct 2025.
    • Photo: Caroline Roche

      Caroline Roche answered on 16 Oct 2025:

      An example of a dramatic reaction would be potassium and water. When the potassium (which is an alkali metal) is dropped into the water, it generates a purple flame from the reaction of the metal oxidising in the water and the release hydrogen gas igniting.

    • Photo: Andrew Parrott

      Andrew Parrott answered on 10 Nov 2025:

      Depends what you mean by best. Do you mean the quickest, the most exciting (like Caroline’s answer), the safest, or something else? For my field, green chemistry, the best would be a reaction that make the intended product and nothing else, whilst using up all the starting materials so there is nothing left at the end other than the wanted product. Also it would be nice if it could be done with minimal energy input and in safe conditions (e.g. room temperature and pressure). Oh, and also the starting materials themselves should be non-toxic and renewable. Not a common scenario to get all of those, so you have to find the best compromise.

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