lacrima97
Hazard to Self
Posts: 93
Registered: 24-7-2005
Location: MS
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Mood: experimental
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Mercury......Reacting?
I have about 30g of mercury in this little 30ml boston round glass bottle. It's been in there for about 4 months with no problem, but recently I
noticed a slight tint around the bottom. I inspected this and the glass (that is in contact with the Hg) is turning a slight green color. When I
looked at the mercury the next day, there was a reddish orangish oil slick type thing on top of the mercury.
Is it possible that the Hg is reacting with the oxygen in the glass forming.......Mercuric Oxide?
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[Edited on 4/12/2006 by lacrima97]
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garage chemist
chemical wizard
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I had this exact effect with my mercury too.
However, I distilled the mercury myself from dental amalgams, therefore it contained a very small amount of tin and other metals.
I figured that the tin would have oxidised, and formed the yellow layer. The tin oxide most likely wasn't pure also, so it could have any color except
white.
Maybe yours is a bit impure, too, since I have some analytical grade Hg, and this does NOT form the yellow stuff!
Then I washed my mercury with 10% HNO3 (very vigorous shaking in a closed flask to divide the Hg into very small droplets), to remove less noble
metals (mercury is quite noble, and if any Hg dissolves, it would plate right out again as it meets any tin). I now have it in a similar flask as you.
Let's see what this does.
To dry the mercury, I've let it drip through a filter with a small hole at the bottom. This removes mechanical contaminations as well as water. The
mercury was sucked up from under the HNO3 layer with a pipette and put into the filter portion by portion.
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lacrima97
Hazard to Self
Posts: 93
Registered: 24-7-2005
Location: MS
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Uh oh....When I first got the mercury, it was in a vial with an either Sn or Al cap. It reacted with this cap and there were little pieces of amalgam
floating around. I attempted to separate this from the mercury by sucking the Hg up in a very small syringe, but it seems that some of this Sn or Al
has remained....So I thank you.
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_cyan_89
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How/where did you get dental amalgames?is it possible to isolate mercury from the HgS in colors?
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