Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Anyone interested in mercury?

Anyone interested in mercury?

kenofken - 24-6-2015 at 21:36

I have an opportunity to acquire up to perhaps 30 pounds of elemental mercury among other gear and reagents from a longtime family friend, but I've been on the fence about it as I have no use for the vast majority of it. If there is any substantial interest, I would go through with the deal in order to make it available for forum members.

I would offer it on essentially the same terms as Praxichys had last year and earlier this year - $80 per pound, with additional markups for amounts less than half a pound (I don't want to be ladeling out the stuff in gram quantities till the End of Days if I can help it). Shipping would be $12-$15, depending what I get quoted these days and how much packaging I have to buy to ship it safely. Payment would be via Paypal.

I don't want to tread on Praxichys' deal, but it sounded like most of his inventory was bought up, and if there is any real interest, I'd be willing to refill the supply line a bit and hopefully add a bit to my R&D budget at the same time. If I hear nothing but crickets, I'm inclined to let the deal pass. I'm not interested in stockpiling the stuff as my dear nieces will be confronted with enough horrors when they go through my estate one day!

Tdep - 24-6-2015 at 21:40

A helpful thing would be location, as I'm going to assume you're in America and there's no international shipping

j_sum1 - 24-6-2015 at 21:50

Tdep, you and I will probably have to organise our own mercury at a later date.

Actually, that was just a throw-away line, but as I was typing, maybe there is some sense in having a syndicate of aussie residents combine for purchases of Hg. Just a thought.

Tdep - 25-6-2015 at 01:11

Purchasing syndicates (i love the word syndicate) for Aussies is great but I can't see it working well from mercury unless someone like kenofken turns up here. International shipping is just awful and domestic shipping between us is also awful. As far as i'm concerned, the Argent Scientific mercury isn't too bad. (http://argentscientific.com/mercury-100g/)

j_sum1 - 25-6-2015 at 02:06

Yeah, you are probably right. Mercury is a dog to ship internationally. It is probably better to support local business in this case. And Argent Scientific is as cheap as I have seen anywhere. Still, I remember Praxichys' large bottle and was a bit envious. Not that I actually have a need for mercury. But a kilogram or so for the element collection would be amazing.

But maybe the idea of an Australian buyer's syndicate has some merit that is worth thinking through. (And worth its own thread.) I recently made some enquiries about some caesium salts and found that they could be obtained but would be expensive unless I was able to order a decent quantity. Give me some time to mull this one over and figure out how it might work. Then I can start a thread on it to see who might be interested.

NedsHead - 25-6-2015 at 04:45

You can count me in (AUS) fellas

[Edited on 26-6-2015 by NedsHead]

kenofken - 25-6-2015 at 05:32

Yes, I am in the U.S. - Chicago area, which I know leaves some of you in the lurch with our export ban and all. I'd turn a blind eye to things like that, but I can ill afford to raise the ire of several federal customs and environmental agencies in two countries. I'm at that awkward age where I'm not pretty enough for Hollywood, but too pretty to do well in prison!

nebotmo - 25-6-2015 at 10:56

I'd buy a pound. I'm near by, in PA.

kenofken - 30-6-2015 at 14:50

It's a bit of a tepid response, but I can't expect lots of hard demand on a speculative offering. More than likely, I will go through with the purchase in about two weeks. Once I do, I expect I'd be ready to ship orders by July 20 or so. I'll update things once I know exactly what I have on hand.

diggafromdover - 1-7-2015 at 05:21

Thanks, Mate!

Praxichys - 1-7-2015 at 07:15

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

Yeah, you are probably right. Mercury is a dog to ship internationally.

The United States has an import/export ban on any and all Hg at the moment, unfortunately. Of course, the level of enforcement comes into question, since you can get mercury thermometers from China on eBay. It's up to you, but I chose not to risk it.

I also found out that you're not allowed to ship mercury unless you have had FedEx hazmat training. USPS and UPS will not carry it at all, and FedEx requires authorization to ship HazMat. There are also government regulations for transporting mercury. No planes, double leakproof containment, padding, and a fiberboard outer layer. Check 49CFR.

Although I was in compliance with both government and FedEx regulations for shipping the stuff, I was still shipping hazardous materials without FedEx knowing what was inside, since I did not have the training. I could be held personally liable for a huge EPA cleanup operation if it had leaked into a truck or something. Entire cargo planes have been written off because of mercury spills. That would be one hell of a lawsuit.

I'm done selling what I had. I made enough to cover the initial cost and also add a couple hundred bucks to the lab. I'm not trying to scare you out of it - just making sure you understand what you are getting into. Bottom line: don't tell anyone what is inside (have a good excuse ready for the rattling sound it makes), and it had better not leak.

Or do it legitimately, which is like a $700, 3-day class and you have to wait to get scheduled. I would have had to fly there.

diddi - 1-7-2015 at 15:33

I brought a flask of Hg in a couple years back (34.5kg). I will see if I can get my contact for another one.

kenofken - 2-7-2015 at 18:48

I'm still researching the federal and Fed Ex regs. Federal rules seem to pretty clearly exempt mercury at 1 lb or under from HazMat rules, except of course for careful packaging. Fed Ex reserves the right to make stricter rules, but they seem to reference the federal rules pretty closely. They do stipulate that you have to have that HazMat training/cert to ship that stuff through them, but at the same time, they seem to imply that the smaller amounts of mercury are not defined as hazardous material. Fed Ex seems to offer an online course for $150 that satisfies its requirement, so I may just opt to do that for this and future use.

However I opt to ship, I sure won't skip on packaging. If I ship mercury, I'm gonna make sure the only way that sucker leaks is if the truck it's in loses an encounter with a freight train. Even then, with a bit of luck, cleanup crews would find a ruptured bottle and quicksilver still snug within the couple layers of vacuum sealed plastic and ziplock bags encasing it.

I'm also planning to offer it exclusively to folks on this and perhaps other serious chemistry or science forums. None of us, including myself, are immune from doing unwise things, but chances are most of us at least appreciate the potential risks of handling mercury or at least think to research or ask the questions before playing around with it.

careysub - 3-7-2015 at 07:42

One thought - if the mercury is in glass, encapsulate it in PVC pipe of suitable diameter, using solvent welding (using the real thick solvent prep, not the purple primer) on the end caps.

Solvent welding of PVC produces a solid piece of plastic, just as solid as if it had been molded in the factory. The recipient will have to cut it out of course. Securely positioning the bottle in the pipe with spacers, and supplying a "cut here" line for a hack saw on the outside would be a good idea.

Praxichys - 3-7-2015 at 08:47

Careysub - It's a great idea in theory, but what you describe would look exactly like a pipe bomb. I had thought of that myself but decided against it in case one got x-rayed. I was originally going to use steel threaded pipe and teflon tape to make mini-flasks - a cap, a short pipe, a reducer, and a threaded plug.

An idea I had but never implemented was to place the mercury inside a heavy-wall HDPE container and fill the headspace with liquid wax, and screw the top on. It would keep the mercury from rattling around or even causing suspicion on an x-ray (since it would look like a solid chunk of metal), and the recipient would simply let the container rest in warm water for a while to retrieve the contents. Paraffin is very cheap in 10-lb bricks at my local Michael's craft store.

I ended up just buying thick LDPE containers with lids, taping the lid to prevent unscrewing, putting that inside two sandwich bags covered in packing tape, then wrapping that assembly in bubble wrap and placing it in a 6" cube box with lots of padding.

careysub - 3-7-2015 at 10:47

Quote: Originally posted by Praxichys

Careysub - It's a great idea in theory, but what you describe would look exactly like a pipe bomb. I had thought of that myself but decided against it in case one got x-rayed. I was originally going to use steel threaded pipe and teflon tape to make mini-flasks - a cap, a short pipe, a reducer, and a threaded plug.

"Might be mistaken for a pipe bomb" I could agree with (but then many, many things can be mistaken of bombs by the suspicious and not well trained).

The way you were thinking would definitely look like a pipe bomb on casual inspection, since they are invariably made out of steel pipe for the explosive confinement/fragmentation effect.

I don't doubt that PVC pipes have been used to makes bombs (along with every type of other container in existence), but it would be a very unusual bomb construction method. Especially without any external connection at all, and no timer visible inside.

How could you ship mercury so that it <i>could never, ever be mistaken for a bomb</i>?

Do they even x-ray ground-only shipments? (Even in a sealed PVC pipe no way would I ship this by air. Putting liquid mercury on a plane is asking for trouble.)

Googling images to see if I could find any PVC pipe bombs all I found was a guy who put a watch in a PVC pipe (capped but not welded) and tried to take it on a plane, then intimated to security when questioned that he knew how to smuggle bombs on planes so they could not be detected. That is, I believe, three flavors of Stupid.

far2g0n3 - 14-7-2015 at 06:40

Quote: Originally posted by kenofken

I have an opportunity to acquire up to perhaps 30 pounds of elemental mercury among other gear and reagents from a longtime family friend, but I've been on the fence about it as I have no use for the vast majority of it. If there is any substantial interest, I would go through with the deal in order to make it available for forum members.

I would offer it on essentially the same terms as Praxichys had last year and earlier this year - $80 per pound, with additional markups for amounts less than half a pound (I don't want to be ladeling out the stuff in gram quantities till the End of Days if I can help it). Shipping would be $12-$15, depending what I get quoted these days and how much packaging I have to buy to ship it safely. Payment would be via Paypal.

I don't want to tread on Praxichys' deal, but it sounded like most of his inventory was bought up, and if there is any real interest, I'd be willing to refill the supply line a bit and hopefully add a bit to my R&D budget at the same time. If I hear nothing but crickets, I'm inclined to let the deal pass. I'm not interested in stockpiling the stuff as my dear nieces will be confronted with enough horrors when they go through my estate one day!

PM'd

kenofken - 15-7-2015 at 22:52

I did go ahead with the deal, so I will have about 20-30 pounds ready to fill orders and ship soon. I'm going to take a week or more to get things organized and acquire some good quality packaging material and some leak resistant nalgene bottles which I believe will be the best for the job. I'll expect to be able to receive, clear and ship orders by the end of he month, perhaps faster for some.

uminum26 - 2-10-2015 at 19:53

Quote: Originally posted by kenofken

I did go ahead with the deal, so I will have about 20-30 pounds ready to fill orders and ship soon. I'm going to take a week or more to get things organized and acquire some good quality packaging material and some leak resistant nalgene bottles which I believe will be the best for the job. I'll expect to be able to receive, clear and ship orders by the end of he month, perhaps faster for some.