Explain the extraction of reactive metals.

Explanation

Highly reactive metals cannot be extracted from their compounds by heating with carbon as it does not reduce the oxides of sodium, magnesium, calcium, aluminium, etc. to the respective metals. These metals are obtained by the electrolysis of their molten chloride. The metals are depoited at the cathode and chloride is liberated at the anode.
At cathode : `Na^(+)+e^(-)toNa`
At anode : `2Cl^(-)toCl_(2)+2e^(-)`