DionSukhram6 - 23-8-2017 at 22:58
I know that mercury forms amalgams with many metals and thus becomes dull and impure over time so it is often distilled to make it very high-purity.
But since it's also pretty unreactive, is there a reason it can't just be squeezed through a filter and soaked in a non-oxidizing acid to purify it,
other than stuff like the cost of the acid?
Sulaiman - 24-8-2017 at 01:21
I shook my mercury with an oxidising acid, 1M HNO3 to try to remove metalic contaminants as mercury reacts quite slowly compared to
aluminium, tin, zinc etc.
My main concern is "what waste will I generate and how will I dispose of it ?"
Ideally all mercury should be recycled - none disposed of, but there is bound to be mercuric or mercurous waste when purifying mercury.
The common mitigation is to convert all waste mercury compounds to insoluble HgS as found in the naturally occuring mineral ore cinnabar.
So whichever way you go, consider how to dispose of the waste before you start.
XeonTheMGPony - 24-8-2017 at 03:33
take your waste nitric wash and add copper to it, the copper will convert to copper nitrate and crash out the other metals, any mercury will coat the
remaining copper.
Distilling under good vacuum is the most efficient and fast way to distill it.