Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Experimenting with mercury

Experimenting with mercury

Aurus - 1-1-2009 at 09:02

Hi. I am new here and I was wondering whether any experiments could be conducted with mercury without a fume hood and risk of poisoning. What do you think?

woelen - 1-1-2009 at 09:11

Depends on what environment you are working in. If you are working in a normal house, then please don't do it. Of course, in a normally equipped lab you can do experiments with mercury.

The problem is not the metal itself. It is not that toxic and opening a bottle of mercury certainly will not lead to dangerous poisonous levels of vapor. The real problem is the risk of spilling. Mercury is a very heavy and remarkably mobile liquid, which easily is spilled. If you spill a few ml of mercury then it breaks up into a bazillion of tiny droplets which will creep into every crack or wrinkle of the floor, the carpet, etc. Cleaning up is almost impossible and this spill will release its vapor, slowly making you sick. If such a thing happens in your house you could make it inhabitable and only after a very costly cleaning action by a professional cleaning company, plus replacement of your carpet, wooden floor or whatever you have, you can live in the house again.

I myself never experiment with metallic mercury, although occasionally I do a small experiment with mercury salts. Although the latter are much more toxic, there is much less risk of spilling the stuff and contaminating the house in such a way that you cannot live in it anymore.

[Edited on 1-1-09 by woelen]

Aurus - 1-1-2009 at 09:46

Thank you, Woelen, for your comment. It is indeed illuminating. However I live in a country where obtaining any kind of salt is difficult... and I do not know how to get around this problem.

woelen - 1-1-2009 at 10:04

If you want to experiment with mercury salts, and you have access to nitric acid, you can dissolve some of the metal (e.g. 3 grams) in some nitric acid, dilute this to 100 ml and use this solution for further experimenting. With this solution, you only need to work with the metal once and when you use a solution, then there also is no risk of contaminating your area by means of dust.

DO NOT prepare the mercury nitrate solution inside your house. Lots of noxious NO2 are produced, which are bad on their own, but much worse are the small droplets of acid with dissolved mercury nitrate. The acid, water and NO2 quickly disappear (they evaporate and leave the house within minutes if ventilated well), but the mercury nitrate remains behind as small dust particles, which settle at the floor, carpet, furniture, etc. This is a very large risk.

If you want to make mercury nitrate, then do the following OUTSIDE on a windy day:
- take 3 grams of mercury (which is a small blob, only appr. 0.25 ml).
- put the mercury in a 100 ml beaker
- take 15 ml of conc. nitric acid (this is appr. 3 times excess amount)
- pour the acid on the metal
- immediately take a paper tissue and loosely cover the beaker with this paper tissue
The gas will go past the tissue, almost all droplets are captured by the tissue.

At the end, the reaction may go somewhat slow, if this happens, just put the liquid aside for a day, asuring that no kids or animals can access it.

When all mercury has dissolved, the liquid may look green due to dissolved NOx. Carefully heat the liquid. More gas is evolved. Some of the dissolved NOx goes out of the liquid, but also part of the mercury is oxidized further from the +1 state to the +2 state. When the liquid is kept hot for a few minutes, then all mercury is present as mercury in the +2 state. Let the liquid cool down and dilute it to 100 ml with distilled water. Now you can use this liquid relatively safely, but of course you still have to be very careful with the increadibly toxic mercury nitrate.

[Edited on 1-1-09 by woelen]

Jor - 1-1-2009 at 10:18

When you work with metallic mercury, it would be best to work above a plastic containment container, so in case you spill, it will not get on the ground. Even if you work outside, you should never spill, as that brings mercury in the environment.

Mercury is extremely toxic in the environment. In a study I read that 0,6mg/L Hg killed 50% of all marine life. I can imagine that even 0,1mg/L can be regarded as severely contaminated water.

Imagine how much water you can contaminated with 3 grams of mercury. Be careful and dispose of the emrcury in a proper way.

JohnWW - 1-1-2009 at 10:28

Mercury salts have been used as fungicides for textiles and wood (although Zn or Cu salts are at least as effective and much less toxic) and pesticides in the past. They were also once used to dye felt and fur hats various black and red shades (and at the same time act as a fungicide), before modern azo and aniline dyes became available, with the result that many hatters suffered fom Hg poisoning - hence the phrase "as mad as a hatter".

The_Davster - 1-1-2009 at 11:54

The density of Hg also makes manipulation of the liquid by conventional means difficult. It can flow out of pipettes, splattering into fine droplets. Working above a container is essential to catch any spills.

The first time I worked with Hg... I did not know this and made a mess in the fume hood at university.

[Edited on 1-1-09 by The_Davster]

hissingnoise - 1-1-2009 at 13:52

I used to worry that clinical thermometers could break in
a person's mouth, and cause serious poisoning.
I was, apparently, being alarmist.
Its reputation, though, is so bad I'd avoid using it
unless I needed MF for an improvised
blasting cap.

Aurus - 2-1-2009 at 05:44

I do not think I will work with mercury, in the end.

hissingnoise - 2-1-2009 at 06:31

When you fully appreciate the properties of the metal you may reconsider, but you're being wise in the interim.
Given your location, copper might be an appropriate alternative. . .it, too, is an interesting metal. . .

Jdurg - 2-1-2009 at 23:47

Mercury is indeed a nasty metal, but like all chemicals, if worked with responsibly you can easily minimize the dangers. One thing to ALWAYS have on hand when working with mercury is nicely powdered elemental sulfur. The sulfur will readily bind up the mercury into a solid paste that won't emit vapor and can be cleaned up. If you work with the metal, as mentioned in a previous post, work in a large plastic container with a thick coating of sulfur on the bottom of it. This way, if any is spilled, it will "meld" with the sulfur and not emit vapors.

The other week, I had ordered some frozen pizzas from a company in Chicago. The pizzas arrived with a few kg of dry ice. (About 1 kg was left after shipping). I put the dry ice in some acetone and actually froze some Hg. AMAZING stuff. When it freezes, it's a nice, dense metal that isn't all too shiny. As it warmed up, it slowly "sweated" mercury and eventually became liquid again. This was ALL done in a tightly sealed glass vial with a large layer of powdered S underneath it. If the glass broke, I had a containment for it. The glass didn't break, and I had a GREAT little experiment on my hands.

Hennig Brand - 10-8-2009 at 05:43

How toxic is mercury nitrate by skin contact? How about skin contact with a mercury nitrate, nitric acid solution?, say during a mercury fulminate synthesis. I googled it for a few minutes and found some stuff about "mad hatters". In the articles it mostly talked about how they breathed a lot of the dust, and ate some quite often (not intentionaly) when they had food (transfer from air and hands, etc I guess). I haven' t seen too much about skin contact, but admit I haven' t looked really hard. The reason I ask is that last night I was making MF, and when I added the mercury nitrate/HNO3 to the ethanol it was still, but after two seconds or so erupted into a very violent reaction. The solution hopped up out of the beaker, fortunately 95% or more went back in the beaker and kept on reacting, quickly slowing down in the following couple of minutes. A little splash landed on my pouring hand, and stained it during the eruption. Probably only a few mg of Hg nitrate, but still kind of concerning. I think my HNO3 was too concentrated. I made it just before I did the reaction. It was watered down to about 90% before doing reaction. It also had quite a bit of dissolved nitrogen oxides. My ethanol was home made @ 90%+, I don' t think this was the problem though. I have to stop saying that I will be more careful, and actually be more careful I guess. Anyone willing to admit getting mercury nitrate on them?

Rich_Insane - 10-8-2009 at 09:06

Well crystalline mercury nitrate won't do any harm on the skin itself, but you can inhale it or eat it accidentally. A solution may be worse, but it depends on the solvent. Something like mercury nitrate/DMSO is quite dangerous, as DMSO penetrates skin, but say, mercury nitrate and water, less so. A few mg won't be extremely toxic. It won't get you too sick either, but if it continues chronically, then you will get sick. We all probably already have a few mg of Hg salts in our bodies from the environment anyways.

woelen - 10-8-2009 at 09:45

Mercury nitrate/ethanol also is not that dangerous, the ethanol does not strongly penetrate the skin. If you cleaned the skin very quickly and rinsed with water and if it only was a small splash, then I would not worry. But repeated accidents of this kind may do harm in the long run. So be more careful next time and do this outside. Even if the solution does not erupt out of the beaker, you still can get many tiny droplets of acid/alcohol/water mix which contains mercury(II) salts and the volatile stuff quickly evaporates, but the mercury salt contaminates your living place!

turd - 10-8-2009 at 11:06

Quote: Originally posted by Jdurg

If you work with the metal, as mentioned in a previous post, work in a large plastic container with a thick coating of sulfur on the bottom of it. This way, if any is spilled, it will "meld" with the sulfur and not emit vapors.

I'd like to know how long one must grind Hg with an excess of S at room temperature until it is fully converted to HgS. In other words: this whole bind Hg with S thing sounds a little bit dubious (as in based on superstition) to me.

And please, most of you are seriously exaggerating the dangers of elemental Hg. It's not HgMe2.

Rich_Insane - 10-8-2009 at 11:28

Mercury does form a complex with Sulfur. I believe HgS is cinnabar no? You would have to grind it for three minutes at least, I'd say.

The people here are quite experienced, you should listen to them. We don't want a ban on Mercury sales, because someone was stupid enough to kill themselves with mercury salts. It is possible to safely handle mercury and mercury compounds. In fact, Mercury is quite safe if handled correctly.

Quote:

Mercury even reacts with solid sulfur flakes, which are used in mercury spill kits to absorb mercury vapors (spill kits also use activated charcoal and powdered zinc)

Wikipedia

Formatik - 10-8-2009 at 12:16

Mercury even reacts with solid sulfur flakes, which are used in mercury spill kits to absorb mercury vapors (spill kits also use activated charcoal and powdered zinc)

I've tried this and got nothing. No reaction with zinc dust. None with sulfur flower either. The zinc dust I even mixed around with the Hg occasionally and let it sit with the mercury for several days and mixing.

It is easy to collect mercury if it is handled and spilled only on a flat surface. In small amounts I'll hold a dropper sideways and then suck up the drops.

I've also tried other ways to collect it, like trapping it and then freezing it with LN2, but although this worked, the mercury melted very rapidly. Not worthwile. I have seen recommendations to freeze with dry ice, which don't seem worthwhile.

I personally can only recommend (with simple materials) accumulating the mercury on a flat surface, and then sucking it up sideways with a plastic dropper that has good suction.

[Edited on 10-8-2009 by Formatik]

hissingnoise - 10-8-2009 at 12:20

Quote: Originally posted by Hennig Brand

How toxic is mercury nitrate by skin contact? How about skin contact with a mercury nitrate, nitric acid solution?, say during a mercury fulminate synthesis.

Why even bother with MF when HMTD, IMO, a superior primary, can be made using hexamine and H2O2 without worrying about being poisoned!

hodges - 10-8-2009 at 13:20

Things sure have changed a lot regarding the perception of mercury safety in 30 years. In 1978, I when I was in 8th grade, I remember we did simple experiments (such as determining density) with mercury. I remember also a beaker full of mercury at the teacher's desk which the teacher would allow us to stick a finger in as a reward for correct answers to science questions. We were, however, always cautioned that only the teacher was to pick up the beaker full of mercury. Supposedly a student had previously picked one up too fast and caused the bottom to break. The point is, I'm sure there had been plenty of mercury spills in that classroom. I don't think anyone got sick from it. Of course, mercury compounds are a different matter.

Right now, on United Nuclear's site, I see this:

Quote:

Special Note: The price of Mercury metal has risen tenfold in the past few months. Due to rapid price fluctuations our quantities on hand are limited.

1 ounce vial: $30.00

This is the first I had heard of the price of mercury rising so much - has anyone else heard about this? In that case, mercury could be a good investment

. I have a pound of it which I paid I think $25 for a few years ago. If an ounce is really worth $30, then my investment is now worth over $400! That certainly beats silver and gold.

Hodges

12AX7 - 10-8-2009 at 13:26

Dunno, free prices only up to 2007.
http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/hg/hg.asp

Silver is even only worth $14.50/tr.oz. That would make mercury semiprecious.

Tim

ammonium isocyanate - 10-8-2009 at 13:34

I don't think that united nuclear sells mercury anywhere near its spot price. In fact, The Science Company sells mercury, triple distilled, for 52.95 per 250g, which is WAY less than the price UN charges. And even they probably have a pretty large mark-up.

Hennig Brand - 10-8-2009 at 15:19

I have just been playing with mercury mostly out of curiousity, that and I have just gotten a source who has mercury periodically that has to be disposed of. I am supposed to pick up a pound or so tommorrow. The bit I used in my MF experiment came from a small switch (~2.75g). I think it is true that if we took everything by way of warnings seriously today, we would be too terrified to practice chemistry at all. Regardless of how exaggerated the perceived dangers, mercury is dangerous, but I think my little learning experience won' t cost me too much. To be honest I was a little nervous at the time.
I normally use HMTD, but have been looking for things more storage stable and with less problematic incompatibilities. I have made a few grams of LA, twice in the last couple weeks. So far I think I really like this stuff, I guess that is a given. It seems to have all the good points, or more by way of performance as silver fulminate, yet is much safer to work with. I have made two 5g batches of RDX to go with the LA. I find after dilution with water to precipitate the RDX, that I have about a 20% solution of HNO3 or so. I used this acid from one batch and made a bunch of lead nitrate. I think I will make some sodium nitrate next, as I can' t seem to buy it here. This greatly adds to the economy of RDX manufacture via hexamine. Anyway mercury fulminate does store pretty well I think, even if it isn' t in a league with some of the better performing primaries. I got a little lax. Thinking MF is simple, but even it has its own unique little pitfalls.

Rich_Insane - 11-8-2009 at 08:41

Guys, I believe Daigger sells 100 g Triple-Distilled Merucry for $25.00 or something. At first I was surprised, but I'm not sure if they charge 150% of it on shipping.

Mercury is ONLY safe when you handle it correctly. Don't be foolish, don't try to soak your friend's head in it. Actually I remember when I was younger, I dropped a merucry thermometer, and spent a few hours trying to catch those beads on the slick concrete floor. I'm not dead am I

Quote:

I've tried this and got nothing. No reaction with zinc dust. None with sulfur flower either. The zinc dust I even mixed around with the Hg occasionally and let it sit with the mercury for several days and mixing.

Hmm, I think it has to be very finely divided, and you have to stir it a bit. But the point is not to form a complex, but to prevent spilled mercury from vaporizing.

Formatik - 11-8-2009 at 11:09

Quite a few mercury spill advice I've seen implied amalgation occurs readily and can be used to just pick up the mercury itself. Even if the metal were bound, it's easier to collect it all and then you have it pure if you want to experiment with it. The vapor itself has a very low vapor pressure, and so shouldn't be worrisome when dealing with small amounts.

JohnWW - 11-8-2009 at 13:22

Mercury does not form an amalgam with iron; I have an old cast-iron bottle that came from a disused mercury mine at Puhipuhi, New Zealand, that was used to store and transport mercury distilled from cinnabar which occurred in an old hydrothermal siliceous sinter deposit. But it fairly readily forms amalgams with the likes of zinc, magnesium, copper, silver, gold, lead, tin, bismuth, and aluminium.

Hennig Brand - 12-8-2009 at 06:28

Some of the old mercury I have found is quite heavily contaminated. It appears to have a dark greyish crusty/filmy layer in some cases, and some has redish/brown layer on outside. I guess the redish stuff is mercury oxide. There also seems to be some other "dirt" in some of the samples. I think it was quicksilver, who on another thread talked about using a big syringe and some cotton wool to filter mercury. This would probably get rid of most of the contaminants. How hard, and how safe would it be to improvise a mercury distillation experiment? I know I have seen it in an old article somewhere, like in a how to article about extracting gold and later retrieving the mercury by distillation. If its contaminated mostly with mercury oxides though, it would make little difference in a MF synthesis, would it? Anyway I am now the proud owner of 10+ pounds of mercury, 90% of which looks good and pure%.

ammonium isocyanate - 12-8-2009 at 06:42

10 pounds!?

How on earth will you dispose of that? After all, you can't keep it forever, and there will be mercury-based waste from anything you do with it.

For that matter, how do plan on storing all that? I know somebody in my town spilled 1/2 pound of mercury recently (in this case, they used it for Al/Hg reduction for methamphetamine production) and it took the hazmat team days to clean up (I know they kinda over-do this stuff alot of the time, but still!).

Hennig Brand - 12-8-2009 at 07:15

Well maybe I should have done a little more preparation before I aquired the material, but I am sure it can be stored safely. If anyone has some advice on storing mercury I would surely love to hear it. I have already transported it for more than 100 miles and had no problems. Right now I have it stored in a remote location, in a camp at least 1/2 mile from any residences. I only stored it there because I am the only one who goes there, and it is locked. I didn' t want to keep it at home because I felt a spill would have more severe consequences. Also with all the people doing things around home, container breakage and a spill was a very real danger, even around the outbuildings. I only brought a couple ounces to the house, and it is in a couple small thick glass bottles with strong leak proof tops, and these are both in a flat bottomed (leak proof) metal container with paper towel packed loosely around and underneath them.
My primary interest so far is of course MF, but it does have many other uses in chemistry. I was interested in building a weather station for awhile, and that could take a lot of mercury. I would also love to find some gold somewhere, and when I do the mercury will definately come in handy.

Never heard of that way of making methamphetamine, and I assure you that making it is not my intent at all! Don' t think you thought I was, but I wanted to clarify anyway.

ammonium isocyanate - 12-8-2009 at 07:48

Yeah don't worry I didn't think that was your intent but that was just the only example of a mercury spill in my city I know of.

Wouldn't we all love to find some gold. I actually do recreational gold panning and have always considered using mercury for the recovery. I even built my own sluice for getting gold from riverbeds. I have a small pile of concentrate that I plan on extracting with aqua regia. I'll have to see how much I get.

Anyway, good to know you're keeping it away from people. Wish I had somewhere to squirrel away my more dangerous reagents (or the ones that I would get if I did have such a place).

watson.fawkes - 12-8-2009 at 08:23

Quote: Originally posted by Hennig Brand

How hard, and how safe would it be to improvise a mercury distillation experiment? I know I have seen it in an old article somewhere, like in a how to article about extracting gold and later retrieving the mercury by distillation.

I've thought though how to do this. It's not particularly difficult, although it requires skills and equipment different from most chemistry gear. Essentially, you make a still with all iron-based materials, such as cast iron, steel, and stainless steel. You can use ordinary black iron pipe for most all the components. You need a boiling chamber, a condenser, and a collection flask, just like any other still. That's the simple part.

Since you're dealing with Hg and presumably care about your health and environmental contamination, that means you need a completely sealed still when it's in operation. Completely sealed is non-trivial. The threads in ordinary commercial pipe are not gas-tight and will make spiral leaks (along the thread root), so you'll need to seal them. You can't really braze the threads up, because mercury amalgamates will all the materials in common pipe brazing alloys (copper and silver primarily). So you'll be welding. Pipe welding is not basic welding, because you're after a complete seal, which does not tolerate pinholes, and not just mechanical strength, which does. There is special pipe with high-precision threads that will seal completely by mere tightening, if you can find it and want to pay for it.

Assuming you make a batch still, you need to be able to open it up and reseal it. Basically, that means flanges. I'd build the gear in the three parts I mentioned above. The boiling and collection containers should be the only place where bulk mercury resides when the still is cold. All the rest of the piping, including the condenser, should be the third piece. You'll need a way to hold the flasks stable while you're demounting the condenser. The flasks will need metal gaskets, which you can cut out of ordinary sheet metal, but you'll want to anneal them dead-soft before assembly and replace them each time the system is resealed.

You'll want to pressure test the assembly, which leads to a whole new set of issues. One way is to pressure test it with a test flange, twice, once from each end. Another is to put in a valve. In either case, you'll want to figure out what your still pressure is and test it to that limit plus a safety margin. In my case, I was thinking about distilling under vacuum, down at say 0.1 Torr (the easy lower limit of a rotary vane pump), to minimize heat and vapor pressure. Pressure testing under vacuum requires a second, separate test, because vacuum failures are different from pressure failures. The test itself consists of attaching a gauge, putting it under pressure or vacuum, detaching the pump, and leaving the system alone for a day. The test passes if the gauge doesn't move.

Hennig Brand - 12-8-2009 at 09:45

That sounds very professional. I am pretty sure that what I read about was much more basic and probably poison hazardous. It was written in an earlier time when we weren' t as poison or environmentaly conscious, I guess. I never really thought of a completely sealed still, but I guess steel can take a great deal of pressure. My perceptions could be off a bit as well, and I have never looked up the pressures involved.
I am not a proffessional welder, but I have welded quite a few times as an amateur. I found that stainless steel was super easy to weld and get a perfect seal(at least for alcohol and water). I have made several different stills in the last 6-8 years with stainless, mostly for alcohol though. I used a DC arc welder, with stainless rods.
Thanks for the well thought out description and info Watson.Fawkes.
Ammonium Isocyanate, if you live in the city, or any heavily populated area it can be a little tricky. I guess it wouldn' t be even responsible, in many cases. A small locked garden shed in a remote location could work quite well. I have seen these small type buildings go for very little, especially if used. Some of the baby barns and such can be put up and taken down in pieces. Even the ones that aren' t really designed to be taken apart, often can be if one doesn' t mind a little work, then transported and put back together on site. I am moving to the city in less than a month to go to school, and I think that I will have to leave most of my toys at home here.

[Edited on 12-8-2009 by Hennig Brand]

woelen - 13-8-2009 at 23:21

Another way to clean up metcury is to drip it through dilute (5% or so) HNO3. A tall column, filled with the dilute HNO3 needs to be prepared. A few centimeters wide and one meter height. Then you very slowly pour the mercury in the acid. While it is falling through the acid, most crap dissolves and all the mercury collects at the bottom. Any remaining crap stays on top. In this way you easily can process more than 1 kilo of metal per batch. The nitric acid can be reused and only needs to be replaced after several batches. It should not be used for any other chemistry experiments after this use.

This dilute nitric acid trick is used to also remove soluble impurities. Less noble metal, dissolved in the mercury, dissolve in the dilute acid, while the mercury itself only is attacked very slowly.

If you don't want to use such a tall column, then you probably also can use e.g. 500 ml of 5% HNO3 and add 10 ml or so of mercury and shake for a while. Then collect the metal and replace with a another batch of metal. In this way, you also can clean the metal, but it is more work. The shaking is more risky though. The glass container must be really thick-walled, otherwise the splashing of the dense metal may break the glass container.

barbs09 - 14-8-2009 at 02:42

I have about 10 kg of cinnabar bearing sinter from Puhipuhi, NZ that JohnWW mentioned. As John said it is mainly silca with ~~<5% HgS?? I was considering pounding it to powder using a dolly-pot and extracting the Hg with dilute nitric acid. This would probably be a fair amount of work however considering the hardness of the rock. Anyone else out there with experience in obtaining the metal from silicified ore?

watson.fawkes - 14-8-2009 at 05:15

I've been reading up on mercury safety, which led me to the CRC Handbook of Laboratory Safety, which contains a section on mercury safety. Large sections of this section are cribbed from the web set of Mercury Safety Products, Ltd., especially their page on mercury toxicity. There's interesting information on that page, but there's no references to medical literature. This is the caveat; I'm not sure just how reliable the following is.

The claim is that Hg is not a cumulative toxin.

Quote:

Mechanisms of Mercury Toxicity

When you work in an environment contaminated with mercury, you quickly absorb the toxic metal. For example, dentists are exposed to mercury vapour and to mercury-rich amalgam dust; this is the 'fall-out' of aerosols generated during removal of amalgam restorations. Skin exposure to native mercury used to be common in dentistry when amalgams were mixed by hand in a chamois leather, but this practice has almost ceased.

On occupational exposure to mercury, absorption is mainly via the lungs; mercury vapour is absorbed to an extent of between 90 and 100% by this route. Dust and droplets on the skin and in the gut are absorbed to a minor extent (about 15%) but doses to these regions are often high.

Some biotransformation of inorganic mercury to short-chain alkyl (methyl and ethyl) forms occurs in micro-organisms in the mouth and in the gut; absorption of these organic forms is relatively efficient (80 to 100%); these are the same chemicals which wreaked so much human devastation in Minemata. Distribution of absorbed mercury throughout the body readily occurs via the blood and mercury partitions reversibly into all organs, including the brain and nerve tissue, which have a higher affinity for the organic forms.

Whilst the half-life of mercury in the blood has been estimated as about 3 days, mercury in body tissues clears slowly, with a half-life of about 90 days. So cessation of exposure will not therefore have immediately beneficial results, in the event of mercury poisoning - benefits of ceasing exposure will only be seen after about a year - four half-lives.

Both inorganic and organic mercury compounds have an avid affinity for thiol (-SH) chemical groups and this is the property which renders them toxic. Most proteins, and all enzymes, contain these thiol groups; this explains both the binding of mercury to all body tissues and many of the biological effects. Most mercury compounds are potent but unspecific enzyme inhibitors, affecting membrane permeability and hence nerve conduction and tissue respiration. In this respect, the biochemical effects of mercury resemble those of black widow spider venom.

So it "partitions reversibly" and clears tissue with a half-life of three months. While not permanent, chronic exposure would lead to some steady-state level that would look like permanent take-up.

watson.fawkes - 14-8-2009 at 05:16

Quote: Originally posted by woelen

Another way to clean up metcury is to drip it through dilute (5% or so) HNO3.

As I have read, this is the usual first purification step before distillation.

JohnWW - 14-8-2009 at 21:07

Quote: Originally posted by JohnWW

Mercury does not form an amalgam with iron; I have an old cast-iron bottle that came from a disused mercury mine at Puhipuhi, New Zealand, that was used to store and transport mercury distilled from cinnabar which occurred in an old hydrothermal siliceous sinter deposit. But it fairly readily forms amalgams with the likes of zinc, magnesium, copper, silver, gold, lead, tin, bismuth, and aluminium.

Barbs09, here is a photo, attached, of my old cast-iron mercury bottle from the mercury mine at Puhipuhi, which is about 30 miles north of my place. It is 350 mm tall, weighs a few kg, and the opening has a screw thread inside it. I got it at an antique auction in Whangarei. BTW I also possess about 1 kg of mercury.

I understand that the mine had become almost uneconomic before the War, but because of the wartime demand for mercury (for use in switches, thermometers, and as mercuric fulminate explosive) the mine was revived, but closed down soon after 1945.

IMG_0059-CastIronPuhipuhiMercuryBottle-Resized.JPG - 255kB

Ketone - 24-9-2009 at 08:00

Quote: Originally posted by hodges

Right now, on United Nuclear's site, I see this:

Quote:

Special Note: The price of Mercury metal has risen tenfold in the past few months. Due to rapid price fluctuations our quantities on hand are limited.

1 ounce vial: $30.00

This is the first I had heard of the price of mercury rising so much - has anyone else heard about this? In that case, mercury could be a good investment

. I have a pound of it which I paid I think $25 for a few years ago. If an ounce is really worth $30, then my investment is now worth over $400! That certainly beats silver and gold.

Hodges

Yeah, I've heard of the price of mercury rapidly rising too.. (though not by how much) It's likely it has to do with the fact that Hg production today is pretty small (atleast compared to what it used to be) and demand is rapidly rising as many countries are banning real lightbulbs in favor of those crappy mercury-using CFL's "low-energy bulbs" as they're sometimes called.

Ketone - 24-9-2009 at 08:10

Quote: Originally posted by Formatik

Mercury even reacts with solid sulfur flakes, which are used in mercury spill kits to absorb mercury vapors (spill kits also use activated charcoal and powdered zinc)

I've tried this and got nothing. No reaction with zinc dust. None with sulfur flower either. The zinc dust I even mixed around with the Hg occasionally and let it sit with the mercury for several days and mixing.

I don't know about the S, can't see why they should react at room temperature..
(to make HgS that is, but they might clump together though, as thick liquids like Hg should do with alot of powdery materials of all kinds)
But the Zn probably doesn't react cause it has an oxide-layer.. You'd often have that same problem when trying to react Hg with Al too.

JohnWW - 24-9-2009 at 11:16

That recent steep Hg price rise cannot be due to any jump in use of fluorescent light bulbs and LCD TVs and screens containing them, because they have been around for many years now, and are set to be superseded by even more efficient LED bulbs and screens. Besides, the use of Hg amalgams for dental fillings is just about extinct, being now banned in several countries, and about to be prohibited in many others. The traditional use of Hg compounds as dyes or pigments, e.g. on hats (hatters no longer go mad) and as vermilion, has long been superseded by organic and other substitutes. Hg has also long been superseded by cyanide for extraction of Au and Ag in mining. There are also several non-chemical applications of Hg for which Ga, or eutectic alloys of Ga, can easily substitute, like high-temperature thermometers, Ga being a much more common metal recovered mostly in the refining of bauxite for alumina.

It must be due to speculators, with more money than sense, trying to "corner the market", by creating a public perception of shortage. But it will turn, before long, into a case of "fools and money are soon parted", in view of what happened around 1980 (when large quantities of Ag were still being used for black-and-white photography, now confined to radiography), when the Hunt Oil brothers tried to "corner" the Ag market, causing the price of Ag to soar astronomically for a few months, before collapsing when the Hunts ran out of money and got their fingers burnt.

watson.fawkes - 24-9-2009 at 14:12

Quote: Originally posted by JohnWW

That recent steep Hg price rise cannot be due to

I'm not sure I believe that there's been a drastic surge in the price of Hg overall. Maybe United Nuclear has seen a jump from their supplier. See http://www.minormetals.com/index.aspx?mode=hg for some recent (spotty) price activity.

More interesting is the "salient mercury statistics", which indicates an overall trend in loss mercury consumption and production. It's pretty clear from these figures that some significant industrial uses are being phased out.

psychokinetic - 24-9-2009 at 17:14

[rquote][
Barbs09, here is a photo, attached, of my old cast-iron mercury bottle from the mercury mine at Puhipuhi, which is about 30 .][/rquote]

I'm suprised to hear we even have/had a Hg mine here in New Zealand. *heads off to find out more*

blogfast25 - 30-9-2009 at 09:33

Quote: Originally posted by Joyce21

Mercury is ONLY safe when you handle it correctly. Don't be foolish, don't try to soak your friend's head in it. So handle it correctly.

Regards

Joyce

____

No but it's interesting to see how even a solid lead object floats on it...

S.C. Wack - 30-9-2009 at 13:19

This week's NYMEX: $550 a flask, down from $640 2 weeks ago. Of course delivery of a single flask if you could get one would be considerably more, but not what UN is asking.

zed - 2-10-2009 at 11:25

When I was a boy, I had friends that brought containers of Mercury to school with them. They had lots of it, had no fear of it, and they got lots of exposure. Their family owned a small Mercury mine.

By way of warning, they seemed to be about the dullest boys in our school.

Their child pleasing trick? Putting a little Mercury, onto a fellow students Silver dime.

Shazzam! The Mercury would quickly mirror-ize the dime, amalgamating itself to the dime's surface.

Were it not for the currently high price of Silver..... A brush with fine, Silver wire bristles, would be an excellent means of recovering spilt Mercury. Silver sucks it right up. Silver plated bristles would probably work just as well.

agorot - 13-3-2010 at 11:09

I want to get some mercury to try to build my own Castner-Kellner cell for several reasons, but mostly because I can

...if I get the mercury for it. I have 100g I bought from a website a little while back for $6, but they have stopped selling it. I would really like to find another source. There are cinnabar deposits less than 200 miles away from me, but I'm not sure I'm ready to try to separate it from the sulfur. Does anyone have a cheap supplier that they know of?

Skyjumper - 13-3-2010 at 13:07

Yeah, electricians, and heater repair people may have them from old switches and such. Befriend them and ask them to hold onto the switches.

manimal - 14-3-2010 at 16:53

I read that one of the past treatments for syphilis involved inhaling mercury vapor, or "fumigating". Essentially, they would hotbox the patient, sticking his head over a pan of mercury and lighting a fire underneath. He would breathe deeply, the boiling mercury clearing the sinuses and causing intense sweating that was thought to expel harmful pathogens.

entropy51 - 14-3-2010 at 17:16

But organic arsenic was much more effective in those days before penicillin.

Hg was more commonly administered as an ointment applied to the chancres.

manimal - 14-3-2010 at 18:59

Quote: Originally posted by entropy51

But organic arsenic was much more effective in those days before penicillin.

Hg was more commonly administered as an ointment applied to the chancres.

I think they used all three routes: ingestion of calomel tablets, inhalation of vapor and application as a salve. Arsenic came a little later as an "improvement" to the mercury. A saying went "one night with Venus leads to a lifetime on mercury".

manimal - 14-3-2010 at 21:25

Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes

The ordinary black stock can usually be tightened gas tight without brazing using a couple of large pipe wrenches, con huevos.

IrC - 14-3-2010 at 21:53

I bought 3 pounds of Hg which was very dirty. Rather than deal with the danger of distillation I simply squeezed it through a high quality chamois cloth. Very bright shiny Hg as a result hard to tell from the quarter pound of triple distilled Hg I also bought at a much higher price.

Skyjumper - 15-3-2010 at 10:29

Pics to compare samples of the two?

IrC - 15-3-2010 at 17:24

Maybe someday. Just finished move and still arranging things. Weeks of work. Hg is buried in boxes in truck somewhere 30,000 LBS heavier than truck empty. Hopefully I'll find it before I die or go brain dead from the squeezing operation. Oh wait, cleaned it 5 years ago and can still remember my name. It is still 2007 right?

To aid you in the meantime the last time I looked it was still bright and shiny.

agorot - 1-4-2010 at 17:29

I want to buy some mercury to make my own Castner-Kellner cell. I've found this website: http://www.aaaoe.com/product/mineral_metals/mercury.html

I could potentially buy mercury internationally. I'm looking for around 3 kg which should be about 250 mL. I can buy it from normal suppliers for 200 bucks a kilo, but i'm not spending 600 bucks on this project.

Does anyone know about importing stuff like this to the US? Would I be breaking any laws? What are the chances of me getting ripped off?

There is also one supplier on the above list that is in Wyoming. I could potentially buy from him.

JohnWW - 1-4-2010 at 18:36

Are there any Hg mines in the U$A? If so, you could try buying some directly from the mine operators, especially if you live close to one of the mines. I believe there are some Hg mines in México, which may also help if you live close to the border.

Skyjumper - 1-4-2010 at 18:43

Junk yards, and metal recycle centers may give it to you (why pay hazmat when it can disappear into your hands?) I found a bottle of merc. in an abandoned paper mill :3

gsd - 1-4-2010 at 18:54

@agorot

Just to give you a price perspective, off late the market price of pure mercury (at least 99.9999% pure - so called quadrapule distilled mercury) is around $ 650 per flask (1 flask = 34.5 kg).

Try your luck with this mercury processor : M/s Bethlehem Apparatus Co. They are very good. But I must say I dealt with them not as a hobbyist but as a Industrial user.

http://www.bethlehemapparatus.com/

gsd

agorot - 1-4-2010 at 18:56

Ironically, I do live close to the border, but I wouldn't dare try crossing it right now. There are HUGE problems right now with drug lords and drug cartels. For example, El Paso, TX is a huge border city between the USA and Mexico. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30 murders committed DAILY in that ONE city by local drug lords. It's really quite scary. I live a little bit more north than that so I don't have to deal with it as much, but it's still unsettling. By 2050 white people are supposed to be a minority in Texas.
I live in a texas border state.

But the mexican thing is a pretty good idea.

There are mercury mines in Texas, but i'm not so sure that they are still in operation. Also, I don't think they would sell to me.

I would love to explore a mine myself though. pretty dangerous stuff. I don't think I would risk it unless I had a guide that went into mines regularly. I also wouldn't want to be trying to pound away at a wall with a pickaxe in a 100 year old mine

agorot - 1-4-2010 at 19:07

Quote: Originally posted by gsd

@agorot

Just to give you a price perspective, off late the market price of pure mercury (at least 99.9999% pure - so called quadrapule distilled mercury) is around $ 650 per flask (1 flask = 34.5 kg).

Try your luck with this mercury processor : M/s Bethlehem Apparatus Co. They are very good. But I must say I dealt with them not as a hobbyist but as a Industrial user.

http://www.bethlehemapparatus.com/

gsd

http://www.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=4657016

I'm not so concerned with purity. I'm only trying to make crude NaOH, its more of just a curiosity really. NaOH is cheap online.

One of my biggest motivations is the idea that the US is getting pretty crazy lately. We have a pretty radical govt right now in my opinion. I don't want to discuss politics here, but I think that within the next 20 years or so we will see a MAJOR crackdown on chemical availability, and I'd love to be prepared if that happens. They can't ban NaCl and electricity so NaOH is perfectly obtainable from a Caster-Kellner cell.

Even if we don't see this massive banning of substances, I would enjoy stocking up.

Anyone live in the southern US? Wanna go on an adventure in a mine shaft?

Skyjumper - 2-4-2010 at 12:27

stocking up looks bad to this radical gov't Better have an explanation that isnt 'The government sucks'

agorot - 3-4-2010 at 19:28

Quote: Originally posted by Skyjumper

stocking up looks bad to this radical gov't Better have an explanation that isnt 'The government sucks'

lol no I was just being honest with people I can be honest with