| Pages:
1
2 |
madscientist
National Hazard
Posts: 962
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: American Midwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: pyrophoric
|
|
I've found that the result of the decomposition of Hg/Al amalgam in water is Hg(OH)<sub>2</sub>, not Hg metal.
Mercury salts aren't as precious as they're made out to be. It was easy to prepare HgCl<sub>2</sub> by stirring rapidly (with a
magnetic stirrer) with an excess of 27.5% H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> and 38% HCl, then boiling to remove remaining
H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> and HCl, and then crystallizing.
I weep at the sight of flaming acetic anhydride.
|
|
|
chemoleo
Biochemicus Energeticus
Posts: 3005
Registered: 23-7-2003
Location: England Germany
Member Is Offline
Mood: crystalline
|
|
Mercury Salts from HgS?
Just wondered, is there an easy way of converting HgS (Vermillion, Zinnober, from www.kremer-pigmente.de) to a mercury salt (Like HgCl2) directly, i.e. NOT via the route of metallic mercury and dissolution of that in nitric
acid?
HgS is a red pigment, that is extremely unreactive (thus not poisonous), and does not dissolve in acid, water or base (to my knowledge). I imagine a
combination of H2SO4/HNO3 might work, though I dont know. Any comments?
|
|
|
Nick F
Hazard to Others
Posts: 439
Registered: 7-9-2002
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
The solubility of HgS is supposedly a few molecules per litre of water, and after a quick search I have not been able to find anything which will
dissolve it, but I have only been looking for a few minutes...
Thus I think the only way would be to go to metallic mercury and work from there. Since this will probably require distilation of mercury, you might
want to check out other routes...
It might be of interest to people that somewhere on the Hive there is a thread about an OTC mercury compound which can be used for making Al amalgams
for reductions etc. A search should find it. IIRC it was not Hg2Cl2, it was something else...
|
|
|
the_alchemist
Harmless
Posts: 4
Registered: 1-10-2003
Member Is Offline
Mood: spiffy
|
|
Mercuric salts
What you are doing seems kinda counter productive to me. 
I suggest that you keep your mercury salts. They are certainly more useful from a synthetic perspective than the element.
However there is one good way to solve your problem. Create an amalgam and use your salts to break down aluminum, you can use gas line antifreeze as
the solvent. It may be hard to recover from the resulting sludge, but the mercury will be returned to the element.
Actually mercury vapor is not quite as bad as people say it is. A friend of mine and I were making HgCl2 and he botched it up, sending a layer of
smoke to the top of his garage. We were fine. *cough* *cough* *cough*
Don't take my word for it though, I once gave myself a case of severe ozone poisoning, now THAT will screw with your respiratory system, i swear
i oxidized my brain.
[Edited on 2-10-2003 by the_alchemist]
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2 |
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
