Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Dying mercury

Adioz - 23-7-2017 at 06:39

How can I dye my quicksilver silver into another color like black or red and maintain it's liquid state like the one attached?
Am a novice. Explain in simple terms please

Attachment: Real Red.mp4 (2.3MB)
This file has been downloaded 960 times

Edit by moderator: Changed title from all caps.

[Edited on 7-23-2017 by gdflp]

j_sum1 - 23-7-2017 at 06:50

am not sure quite what you are seeing here but I would be surprised if you were genuinely getting a red colour to the Hg. It might be an alloy with some other metal but I doubt it. More likely to be a trick of the lighting.

Incidentally, this kind of thread belongs in Beginnings -- around here the general practice is that an opening post without a citation to a scientific paper or patent belongs in the Beginning section. This is true even if it is a rather complex question.
We also don't like posting in multiple threads. You can delete the duplicate by clicking on "edit" and then checking the delete box.
Welcome to SM.

Adioz - 23-7-2017 at 11:10

Thank you for Direction

MERCURY COLORING

Adioz - 23-7-2017 at 11:12

How can I dye my quicksilver silver into another color like black or red and maintain it's liquid state like the one attached?
Whether it's through making an alloy or whichever?
Am a novice. Explain in simple terms please

Attachment: Real Red.mp4 (2.3MB)
This file has been downloaded 758 times

Betta - 23-7-2017 at 20:35

Dude, if you're doing this for amusement's sake, I urge to reconsider and drop the idea.

Mercury is EXTREMELY toxic on all its forms and as the liquid metal it is always emitting toxic mercury vapors. It isn't an irritant so it won't make you cough as a warning, but will affect both the kidneys and the nervous system hard in irreversible ways. The fact the guy doesn't even have gloves tells he's probably not using any kind of protection and not telling it in the video is suspicious.

If you would HAVE to do it, get at least a gas mask with cartridges made specifically against mercury vapors. There's a reason even thermometers are getting banned and phased out so getting the mercury is probably troublesome to start up with. Better to watch those feats on the saftey of your computer screen and spent time researching activities that don't reduced your lifespan and its quality by several decades.

j_sum1 - 23-7-2017 at 21:20

Moderation, Betta. Hg is not quite the bogeyman it has been made out to be. It is possible to handle it safely. Touching it or breathing in the same room is not a death sentence.

As in anything like this, it is important to understand three critical issues:
* The form that the substance is in.
* The route by which the substance enters an organism and the effect on body systems
* The amount of exposure -- amount, concentration and duration.

Metallic Hg does not penetrate the skin and is not actually that biologically active.
Mercury vapour does enter the body easily but is again not too active and the quantity is normally quite small. The danger here is spills, enclosed spaces and duration of exposure which can happen easily if the mercury is not cleaned up.
Mercury salts are toxic by ingestion and inhalation but this is easily avoided.
Organic mercury is the real killer -- a potent neurotoxin at low exposure levels.

This medical report makes a very interesting read and puts the situation into some perspective.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200006153422405#t=a...
Obviously this practice is not to be recommended. The point here is that although extreme, the situation was not fatal.


That said, my advice would be to anyone handling mercury is to do your research and make sure you know what you are doing before you begin-- including alll aspects of risk management, clean up and environmental impact




Back on topic...
I am welcome to be corrected by someone but I can conceive of no way that liquid mercury could be effectively coloured. When Betta says, "Dude, if your're doing this..." it is by no means clear what "this" is.

Adioz - 23-7-2017 at 21:58

Thank you for your posts, keep them coming. But to be sincere, I haven't been helped at all. Am not searching for the dangers of mercury, but rather, how to colour mercury please.
Whichever way, I am in need of the technical no how.

TheMrbunGee - 23-7-2017 at 22:57

I don't think this is really possible, most probable way that was done is by having red background (behind the camera) . Or visual effects.

You can dye (liquid) metals only by alloying, but there is no red metal. You can only get silver, gold or copper color.. (correct me if I am wrong!)

Assured Fish - 23-7-2017 at 23:20

Im gonna have to agree with TheMrbunGee, it looks like a scam to me, these people are all trying to sell this stuff and they all appear to be coming out of Malaysia.
According to this site they are selling it for up to $150 a gram.
https://www.diytrade.com/china/pd/5643011/Red_Mercury.html

I guess we need someone crazy enough or stupid enough to buy some and see if there is any legitimacy to it.

I think perhaps it may have some kind of connection to the whole kerfuffle about a supposed red mercury compound and it being used to manufacture nuclear weapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury

Edit: Ok so i found some information regarding red mercury found on the following site, it stated:
Quote:

Research and Development of range cherry red mercury products as below: Compound Sulfuric Mercury HgSO - HgSO4 - HgSO4Na Antimony Oxyde Mercury Molecular formula: Sb2O7Hg2. Density: 20/20. Purity: 99.9995%. Color: Cherry Red

http://hg-mercury.org/topic/index.html

So there may possibly be some truth to this, although i still think that the people trying to selling from their youtube channels are scammers.


[Edited on 24-7-2017 by Assured Fish]

[Edited on 24-7-2017 by Assured Fish]

ave369 - 24-7-2017 at 03:26

Red mercury is a pretty well known hoax that comes from Russia. The Soviet KGB invented this fake material to ferret out potential nuclear terrorists, but forgot to warn everyone it was a hoax when it kicked the bucket. The result was loads and loads of scams involving red mercury as a supposedly miraculous substance.

XeonTheMGPony - 24-7-2017 at 15:23

Quote: Originally posted by Betta  
Dude, if you're doing this for amusement's sake, I urge to reconsider and drop the idea.

Mercury is EXTREMELY toxic on all its forms and as the liquid metal it is always emitting toxic mercury vapors. It isn't an irritant so it won't make you cough as a warning, but will affect both the kidneys and the nervous system hard in irreversible ways. The fact the guy doesn't even have gloves tells he's probably not using any kind of protection and not telling it in the video is suspicious.

If you would HAVE to do it, get at least a gas mask with cartridges made specifically against mercury vapors. There's a reason even thermometers are getting banned and phased out so getting the mercury is probably troublesome to start up with. Better to watch those feats on the saftey of your computer screen and spent time researching activities that don't reduced your lifespan and its quality by several decades.


and here I was chasing my whisky with mercury shots, I'm amazed all the ulcer patients didn't up and die! and man that dentist ripped me off those fillings musn't be mercury amalgem!

Too little knowledge is a dangerous thing and best not to give advice when you don't know your self!

Bad info is oft worse then non!

XeonTheMGPony - 24-7-2017 at 15:27

As to OP

Hg is an elemental metal, you can not dye it, sorry but impossible, but with some L.E.D.'s you can scam the hell out of suckers!

Adioz - 25-7-2017 at 01:48

That's not what am looking for, though I still appreciate your sentiments.
But still, is there a way to colour it?

Adioz - 25-7-2017 at 01:50

A friend coloured it, but doesn't want to explain what she actually did. She only said, she used the sulphate of copper

Assured Fish - 25-7-2017 at 02:51
Quote:

A friend coloured it, but doesn't want to explain what she actually did. She only said, she used the sulphate of copper

Do you actually have evidence of what your friend made?
Its just sulfates of copper tend to be blue in color, perhaps if you were to obtain a small quantity of her red mercury then you could dissolve it in nitric acid and then boil off the acid carefully without decomposing it, then dissolve that in some water as well as another sample of known mercury nitrate in water.
Then get an IR on both samples.
This may not identify exactly what you are dealing with but it should give you an idea.

Alternatively, have you considered the fact that you merely heard her wrong and what she actually said was sulfide, in which case try and dissolve some mercury sulfide pigment in some mercury metal using shit loads of agitation, to be honest this is probably the first thing i would have tried. If no luck with that then maybe try copper 1 oxide.

The issue with your question is that we have absolutely nothing to go on. We have no samples we have no reliable sources that reference such a substance and the only information any of us can find is crappy YouTube videos of people trying to sell what to anyone's better judgement would be fraudulent and some reference's to an old soviet hoax.
If you legitimately have access to or know someone who has access to red mercury metal, then you have a considerably better starting point for investigation than anyone else on this forum.

XeonTheMGPony - 25-7-2017 at 03:53

Quote: Originally posted by Adioz  
That's not what am looking for, though I still appreciate your sentiments.
But still, is there a way to colour it?





NO

Clear enough yet?

XeonTheMGPony - 25-7-2017 at 03:54

Quote: Originally posted by Adioz  
A friend coloured it, but doesn't want to explain what she actually did. She only said, she used the sulphate of copper


If they can't explain how they did it then they did not do it.

Adioz - 25-7-2017 at 12:37

Assured Fish

You have an idea am going to try. Thank you so much.

AJKOER - 26-7-2017 at 03:27

This russian website (http://ru.webqc.org/balance.php?reaction=Hg+%2B+CUSO4+%3D+Hg...) cites the reaction:

Hg + CuSO4 = HgSO4 + Cu

which, I suspect if accurate, could introduce a metallic copper coloring into the mix.

j_sum1 - 26-7-2017 at 03:34

Yeah but you could just dissolve some copper in the mercury to form an amalgam. Never mind the sulfate. The problem here is that a copper mercury amalgam is not copper-coloured -- it is the typical shiny grey of metallic mercury.

NileRed recently posted a video where he shows the dissolution of gold into mercury. (Cool to watch.) Again, the metal colour is lost when the amalgam is formed.

Melgar - 2-8-2017 at 19:01

Yep. The only metals that have any color at all are the ones in the group 11 transition metals: copper, silver, and gold. Silver is colored only in the UV spectrum, so that leaves copper and gold. The reason that nearly all metals are all silvery-gray is because of the way light works. Something can only reflect different colors of light if it treats light of different wavelengths differently. Colored materials do this by preferentially absorbing certain colors of light, since electrons in them can only absorb specific quantities of energy that would move them to energy levels that can be occupied. But electrons in metal are loose and can move freely in the metal, and can absorb ANY amount of energy that a photon can give them. It's why Faraday cages work, and why all metals are silver-gray. Well, except the ones in group 11, which have some color to them for quantum-mechanical special-exception reasons that I don't really understand.

Chemetix - 2-8-2017 at 21:34

First direct your readings to
Gerardus Dorn, Congeries Paracelsicae chemiae de transmutationibus metallorum.

Take special interest in the liberation of metallic Aethers by sulphuros distillations and refinement of the spirits. Once learned then the Hermetic writings will be able to be properly understood, and the transmutations of mercury will be at your disposal.

I think alchemy is your best chance at colouring Mercury...good luck with that!

symboom - 3-8-2017 at 11:59

Probally horrible joke on this I saw the post and I thought dying mercury I thought finally its mercury dying instead of other people dying from it. Aside from just spraypainting it which would be interesting due to it being a liquid which works for painting other metal surfaces. So I say spray paint it.

Also https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k4LriE3S3fo
This is for gallium but it shows coloring it when liquid
And jump forward to 4 minutes of the video when he acually does it the experiment. After all of the annoying figit spinner stuff
spray painted gallium and gallium melting and breaking free from the spray paint leaving a shell of paint I feel like this could be useful for other thing isolating glow in the dark pigments from paint maybe

What about anodizing it works for aluminum maybe it will work for mercury

[Edited on 3-8-2017 by symboom]

MrHomeScientist - 11-10-2017 at 10:22

I would love to see pictures and a fully documented procedure for that.

vmelkon - 13-10-2017 at 06:05

Quote: Originally posted by ave369  
Red mercury is a pretty well known hoax that comes from Russia. The Soviet KGB invented this fake material to ferret out potential nuclear terrorists, but forgot to warn everyone it was a hoax when it kicked the bucket. The result was loads and loads of scams involving red mercury as a supposedly miraculous substance.


Really?

I remember seeing some documentary about Red mercury when I was a kid. This was back in the 1980s.
It was probably 1 hour. The investigative reporters finally got their hands on some sample and payed a huge amount. They sent it to chemists who analyzed it.
I think the result was HgS plus other things. There was no Plutonium. There was some rumer that it is suppose to have Pu and it does something for the guidance system.

Anyway, when you are a kid interested in science, it all sounds intriguing.




[Edited on 13-10-2017 by vmelkon]

MrHomeScientist - 13-10-2017 at 07:34

I can't edit my previous post to delete it, but that was in response to another user's claim that got deleted. So ignore my last comment above. And this one!

VSEPR_VOID - 13-10-2017 at 15:07

I thought this would be moved to debris

JJay - 13-10-2017 at 16:37

Does anyone know offhand if sodium thiosulfate reacts readily with elemental mercury?