This is my setup for making sodium metal. Here is the cell placed on a hot plate. First part is aluminum weldment which contains molten sodium hydroxide. Second part is used as a lid. An anode is placed in the middle of the cell and fits in the sodium collection tube. Both electrodes are electrically insulated from cell by stove sealant, which is resistant to sodium hydroxide. Cathode is made of pure nickel guitar string wrap wire. Collection tube is press fitted to the lid. Whole inlet is used as oxygen exhaust. Bolts are used as a position guide. A temperature probe is fixed in the cell body to measuring salt temperature. Small resistance wire is used to measuring electrolysis current. As a power source I use a modified microwave oven transformer with output about 8 volts and 40 amps. A fan is used to cool transformer and rectifiers. This is about 150 grams of sodium I have made. Small chunks are contaminated by sodium hydroxide because I used bad extraction method. I skip sodium hydroxide preheating because the process usually takes about two hours. Just be warned that upon heating sodium hydroxide increase its volume. After the sodium hydroxide is molten we must preheat the lid to prevent solidifying of the salt. I simply heat it up with propane torch. Place the lid onto cell and connect wires to cathode terminals. Note that I do not use a safety gloves. This is because molten sodium hydroxide will eat them. Ha ha ha. The cell is now ready to begin the electrolysis. Now we will turn on the power supply. At the collection tube hydrogen gas will be produced on the anode and oxygen gas on the cathode. It is very important that salt in the collection tube remain in liquid state. If salt solidifies, an explosion or molten salt leak may occur. If the salt solidifies you must break the crust, wait until hydrogen gas escape and reheat salt and lid. Now turn on the power supply once again. As current removes all of water present in the salt a small drops of sodium will appear. Some of them will burst into the air igniting hydrogen gas produced. Once this happen, turn off the power supply and place a lid on collection tube. This is to keep the sodium metal under inert atmosphere and to prevent fuming into the air. I also place a long aluminum tube sealed with aluminum foil into the oxygen exhaust hole. On top of that tube a piece of cloth is used as a particle filter. This is also to prevent fuming. After about an hour I turn off the power supply and take off the lid of a collection tube. You can see that on the lid is chukov solidified salt that contains small particles of metallic sodium, so I break it off and throw back to collection tube. In the collection tube there is a piece of molten sodium metal. To extract it I use a perforated spoon. Perforation allow molten salt to escape, thus keeping contamination of sodium chunks at minimum. Remember to always use dry and clean equipment when manipulating molten salt or metallic sodium. A drop of liquid water may lead to explosion or flame. I let the spoon sit in molten salt for few seconds to heat it up and dissolving solidified salt. This spoon was left in air for about half an hour and reaction was quite vigorous as sodium hydroxide is hydro scopic. With perforation as was shown it is also easier to pick up sodium drops. Typical yield for this setup is about 10 grams of sodium metal per hour at 40 amps. After all sodium is collected it is good to remelt solid in collection tube before starting a new batch. I didn't run the cell continuously for more than hour. Shortly after an hour explosions occur inside the cell. Once a few grams of sodium was spilled due to an explosion. Also the primary coil of transformer gets very hot after an hour, but this is only a proof of concept and many improvements can be done. Depending on free time, I want to post a video focused on construction of the cell and experience I gained from building it so others will not make the same mistakes. So thanks for watching and keep the science alive.