I'm not disagreeing with you. Sodium is highly reactive.

With new battery technology this metal may become more common.

I don't recall seeing it listed in anything that TSA has provided to the public as a restricted item.

Maybe you should take you own advice, Ronny, since your record on this forum and at PV consists entirely of being completely wrong about everything you comment on and then running away when you're called on it.

Very easy way around this one folks - place the powder in an urn made of a material the x-ray can see through and claim it's your loved one's remains. They can't open urns.

Again, the TSA shows it's complete, paranoid, and utter stupidity.

Sodium, all by itself, reacts violently with water and also reacts with air.

Sodium is usually stored in oil. You can throw a chunk of it into water and then see it go boom once the water gets past the oil.

Yup...quite fun. I suppose in a <3.4 ounce container with a little bit of oil in it coating the sodium metal you could have a lot of fun on a plane. That would be bad in the lav.

I do wonder just how much of an issue it would be with battery cells, though I guess a dedicated terrorist could disassemble one on the plane to harvest the metal??

It's a loud way to ruin a septic system. :D A small piece may explode on first toss into water and bounce out only to skip around at the top for a while, but a bigger chunk gets submerged sufficiently for long enough to give the TSA the kind of bang it is always supposedly experimenting with.

I would imagine it's (sodium metal) already covered by DOT/FAA hazmat regs of some sort.

Good point. I would hope its carriage is regulated in some manner.

But would it be discovered by a highly trained TSO?

In a glass container full of oil, perhaps but not likely if stuffed somewhere where the sun don't shine and the WTMD hasn't gone off.

To think that a burst condom of cocaine is scary... :eek:

A bottle with a block of sodium breaking in there would certainly make for a nasty mess. :eek:

Oh what is the TSA doing about that?

Metallic sodium reacts with water to form NaOH (sodium hydroxide) and release of hydrogen gas (sometimes rapidly with flames). The NaOH reacts with aluminum when in the presence of water causing pretty rapid corrosion (think big holes eaten in aluminum surfaces) along with a slight rise in temperature of the aluminum.

What is TSA doing about this? Given their largely impotent war on water, TSA now confiscates soft yellow metals because you never know when that gold you thought you were wearing could be confused (yes, I know) with metallic sodium.

Save us from the clown posse at TSA that gets threat scenarios from Hollywood.

Depending on what this entails and how it's implemented, the TSA is going to anger lots and lots of women -- a lot of us switched to all powder makeup instead of liquid/cream makeup to avoid the ziploc bag limit.

Exactly. I use mineral-based powder, foundation and blush, and often travel with eye shadow as well (also a powdery substance). Are they seriously going to start testing 5-6 different items every time I go through a checkpoint? Seriously?

What does this powder test entail?
 

What is the scoop on these powder tests and how are they conducted?

I typically travel with two powders in my carry-on. The first is baby powder. The second is more granular like, but it is a medication.

My concern isn't so much with the baby powder, but will TSO's have to handle my powder medication and/or pour some powder out for a sample?

To what extent will powders be handled for testing? The powder in question is kept in its original RX bottle. I don't know about others, but I will not ingest anything if it has been poured out of a bottle, handled with, and poured back in (eek, has the potential to make a big mess too).

Thanks TSA :mad: :mad: :mad: