Quote: Originally posted by Endimion17  | You mean soluble salts. 
I've never heard of any case of building evacuation because a fluorescent lamp broke. That's just an utterly stupid thing to do, but I do believe
there are people capable of doing it, and I believe some might do it for criminal reasons (money laundry, nepotism, etc.)
Next thing I'll do is opening a fluorescent tube in front of a screen lit by UV-C. I doubt there's enough vapor to be visible. The pressure inside is
so low that if you snap the glass seal underwater, water will rise to the top, leaving few bubbles of presumably some inert gas doped with mercury
vapor. I've never seen any macroscopic beads in any fluorescent tube. Broken thermometer will probably emit more vapor in one minute than tens of
tubes in few months. |
Yeah, I meant soluble. But I read somewhere that schools have been evacuated because of a broken thermometer. But even that is overkill. I once heard
as well, a 'professional' saying if a fluorescent light bulb breaks the room should be evacuated immediately. That's extreme overkill. The world today
is just safety nuts.
I'm not saying that it is paranoid to be scared of mercury vapors, its just that an extremely tiny amount isn't going to do any thing. If you are
working with broken thermometers, you'd need to clean it up with sulfur immediately, and if dealing with larger amounts of mercury, work in a tray
outside or in a well ventilated area. Its not good to play with a several ounces of mercury in a poorly ventilated room in your house.
[Edited on 14-12-2011 by ▒Nick▒]
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