Karthik Gurumurthy
When boiling water overflows, water hits the gas burner and gives a brilliant yellow glow.
What is the chemistry behind this?
Yellow color is a result of ignition of sodium atoms or ions. Sodium is derived from Sodium Chloride (salt). When we have high concentration of salt from food, it might have spilled which has traces of sodium. Hot sodium ions emit light of specific characteristic frequencies which shows the presence of the element.
Sodium belongs to Alkali Metal family. Ionization of Alkali metals is possible in hot fames because of low ionization potentials (IP) . Atomic Sodium has an IP of around 500 KJ/mol.
Just a quick recap..What is Ionization Energy?
It is the energy required to remove the lowest energy electron from the gaseous atom to form the positive cation.
The Na (Sodium) ion and electron may recombine to form a neutral excited Na atom. After sodium atoms are heated or you can say thermally excited they return to ground state via photon emission. The wavelength observed matches the energy of the photons.
Everything you want to know about science but afraid to ask 
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