How do you determine if you have a sodium in an unknown compound?

Answer 1

Flame ionization is probably the quickest and easiest method: burn it and look for the characteristic sodium lines. There's also mass spectroscopy, and if you want to get really fancy and happen to have a nuclear reactor lying about you could use nuclear activation analysis.

Answer 2

You can determine the presence of sodium in an unknown compound by performing a flame test. When the compound is heated in a flame, sodium will produce a bright yellow flame color. Additionally, you can use a sodium-specific analytical technique like atomic absorption spectroscopy to quantify the amount of sodium present.