jamit
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mercury from broken thermometer
I just recently broke two mercury thermometers and was wondering how I could save the mercury. It's mixed with shattered glass from the thermometer
and I need to separate it. any ideas? thanks in advance!
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LanthanumK
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I assume you already know about the dangers of mercury. It appears that filtering is enough to remove large-sized impurities. Also, all glass should
float to the top when the mercury is in a narrow container. Using tweezers, pick the shards of glass off the top of the mercury. Here is one article
detailing the filtering process: http://www.ehow.com/how_5993184_clean-impurities-liquid-merc...
hibernating...
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Arthur Dent
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A trick to remove crud and foreign objects from mercury is to take a glass funnel, and then put a paper cone in it (not necessarily filter paper, just
plain white paper will do also). Poke a hole at the apex, and depending on the size of the hole, your mercury will slowly drip down, leaving the crud,
metal oxides and glass bits on the surface of the paper.
If you have access to glass ampoules, or glass tubing, i'd heat-seal that puppy up because mercury is nasty, even if it's just sitting there! And if
you seal it in glass, do it in a well-ventilated area or under a hood.
Robert
[Edited on 7-7-2011 by Arthur Dent]
--- Art is making something out of nothing and selling it. - Frank Zappa ---
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mr.crow
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I just break a thermometer in a plastic bag and pipette it out (kind of tricky). Outside of course. Just put it into a standard glass vial with
plastic cap. Still has tiny bits of glass dust stuck to the surface, not worth cleaning.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble
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jamit
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But if I wanted to clean it from glass dust how would I do it? Filter it? But how...what filter paper would you use?
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White Yeti
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Strange, what kind of glass was the thermometer made of? From personal experience I know that soda lime can break into small pieces, but these pieces
are large enough to be picked up with tweezers. Only "wind shield glass" will shatter into thousands of small shards . How did your thermometer turn
into "glass dust"? Did you grind a hole into it with a dremell?
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mr.crow
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I put it in a bag and tapped it with something heavy. Crunch!
I also did this with thermostat tilt switches. Maybe they are different? Yeah tempered glass will break into 1000s of safe little cubes
jamit: Read Arthur Dent's post about filtering
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble
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peach
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Pour it into a petri dish, swirl it around the edge to separate the mercury and glass and much as possible.
The mercury can be carefully, and with difficulty, sucked up with a syringe. Before doing so, scrape the glass off the top, as metal melters scrape
the slag off a melt before a pour. It is difficult to suck up because the stuff is so dense it doesn't behave like a normal liquid and tends to pour
back out. Tip the syringe back as you do this and pull quickly. It is more like pouring it into the syringe than sucking it up.
It also won't blot up on tissue, for similar reasons. Sulphur is used instead.
The most useful thing you could do with it for chemistry is to turn it into a salt. For example, the nitrate or chloride.
Mercury salts are genuinely, highly toxic and behave in odd ways. We should avoid them whenever an alternative is available
These can be used for reductive amination. When combined with aluminium (that has been rinsed in hydroxide to remove it's oxide coating and then water
to remove the hydroxide), the mercury will form an amalgam with it and begin injecting spare electrons from the aluminium into a reaction. This is the
'dissolving metal' method you may have seen NurdRage demonstrating with ?gallium?, although he didn't mention the electrons, reduction or amination. I
seem to recall one of the PeriodicTables videos mentioned some of it, but only briefly. A use for this reaction is swapping a ketone for an amine.
Serotonin and dopamine are both amines, meaning the amine derivatives are important in psychiatry and drugs related to the brain.
The reaction is also possible with lithium, sodium and others; like thiourea dioxide. Mercury salt is the worst choice in terms of risk and is not
always better, it is simply more accessible for many.
You must note that mercury salts are often far more toxic than elemental mercury as they are water soluble, whereas
elemental mercury is a noble metal that refuses to react with acids in a normal fashion; and so has difficulty entering our body. Once it is a salt,
it will transfer mercury ions to our bloodstream very, very easily by comparison; as most of our body is water. This is a key component to drug
development, how they cross from the lungs and digestive tract to the bloodstream; most oral, nasal, injected and anal drugs are salts to help them
enter the body quickly and efficiently.
Other problems exist with the salts, in that they will sublimate (disappear) into the atmosphere without boiling.
As such, you should only be handling these salts if you have significant practical experience with toxic materials. If you were not already aware of
the use of the salts and their toxicity issues, you should not make them. Instead rely, as I enjoy doing, on simply keeping the element alone in a
test tube for people to feel it's weird, weird density and liquid flow and, opting for the smarter route, practice on things with more obvious warning
signs of their toxicity first.
I have mercury salt from a lab supplier and have made my own from elemental mercury. I, and many others here, purposefully avoid using them due to the
risk. It is one of the few things I handle that I will always put gloves on for and worry about, as it would be too easy for brain damaging amounts to
end up on my hands and then on my sandwich, and then my sandwich in my mouth.
I have also heard about someone who managed to sublimate a large amount of them into the air whilst he was asleep. He was not heard from again.
Mercury ions are strongly neurotoxic. Every atom of it that enters your brain will permanently jam a neural growth cone. Meaning that it will block
your ability to remember and learn. The mercury is not metabolised out; it is an accumulative, persistent toxin. The salts are the easiest way to get
them there. The phrase 'mad as a hatter' and the mad hatter from Alice in Wonderland are references to hatters using mercury to process the felt, that
hats are sometimes made from, and, due to exposure, subsequently ruining their brains.
[Edited on 16-8-2011 by peach]
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Endimion17
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By far easiest, and one of the least dangerous methods for removing this metal from small amounts of nonreactive solids such as glass dust is
pressurized filtration throught a small piece of cotton.
Remember, always work outside, over a plastic tray and work carefully. Mercury spews those annoying little droplets (0.1 mm or
smaller) when agitated, and they last for years, fuming all the time. That's why I'll never understand that guy on Youtube dropping a canon ball into a pool of mercury. He has no idea how much
droplets covered his clothes.
Take a plastic syringe, put a small cotton ball in its tip, and lay it on a bit bigger ball laying at the bottom of the glass. Remove the piston and
pour the metal inside. Then return the piston and slowly press, tilting the syringe slowly, to find the optimal pressure for slow flowing through the
cotton. One drop per second is enough.
It is very important that the piston doesn't touch the mercury.
The piston is simply pushing the air, which pushes the metal through the cotton. If the piston touches the mercury, the system is no longer pneumatic,
but hydraulic, and if you press strong enough, the metal might easily sprinkle out between the piston and the syringe. That would make a toxic mess.
In the end you'll end up with a small bead of really disgusting looking metal, remaining in the syringe. Put on the gloves and squeeze the balls (lol
^_^). Lots of small but clean beads will flow out. Then pack that disgusting bead in the cotton ball and squeeze it, too. Collect the metal in a well
sealed plastic of thickwalled glass container, and discard the cotton. If you notice that some of those stupid droplets managed to contaminate the
area, dust them with sulphur powder.
[Edited on 17-8-2011 by Endimion17]
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smaerd
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Can mercury be stored under an ''inert liquid'' to help prevent fuming? Mineral oil or some such?
I have mine in a test-tube with a rubber stopper on snuggly. Maybe I should fix a quick line of duct-tape around it to prevent exposure even more.
Granted the bead I have is 300mg at most(scale can't get finer weights), so it's not a huge amount.
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Endimion17
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Quote: Originally posted by smaerd  | Can mercury be stored under an ''inert liquid'' to help prevent fuming? Mineral oil or some such?
I have mine in a test-tube with a rubber stopper on snuggly. Maybe I should fix a quick line of duct-tape around it to prevent exposure even more.
Granted the bead I have is 300mg at most(scale can't get finer weights), so it's not a huge amount. |
No oils. They create emulsions, and you don't want mercury oil emulsions, the reasons are obvious.
Layer of distilled water attenuates the fuming. Anyway, that always creates the need for drying the metal before using it, which adds to your
exposure, and if the metal is not pure, you'll get the water messy and the metal will go into the floured state. I do not use water. I rely on small
surfaces (half kg can be stored safer than 15 g).
Your bead is not something you should worry about. If the stopper is tightly sealing the tube, there's no need to worry.
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sinai
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@Smeard the harm from mercury is only on repeated exposure, and unless your sleeping and living next to your chemicals I wouldn't worry about it. But
to stop the fuming the best way is to store the mercury in a glass bottle which then is immersed in water. Get a small amber glassed bottle, tighten
the cap, and place it in a jar filled with water. Providing you get the densities right, the mercury filled bottle should sink.
@jamit original poster : use a burette or some similar method and just discard the last parts of the mercury. Mercury has a high surface tension, all
the glass, dust and unwanted particles would float on top of it. Not sure how much you have gathered, but if its a small amount use cappilary tubes.
But small glass particles are inert, and wont really contaminate your experiments unless your making a mirror.
And don't worry, your palms skin is too thick to absorb any mercury. Just don't stick your finger in your mouth lol
"Speak good, Behave good, and See good" - Ahura Mazda
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Chemistry Alchemist
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i deliberately broke a thermometer to get out the mercury and all i done was get 2 fine objects (pins or tweezers) and slowly separated the glass from
the mercury, mercury forms balls so it is really easy to separate it from glass
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