Re: Mercury spills

[brian whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

At 17:59 5/5/99 -0400, you wrote:
> The following information is from the aforementioned Flinn Scientific Inc
> catalog, a source of safety techniques as well as a place to buy supplies
> (PO Box 219, Batavia IL 60510, 800-452-1261, flinnsci@aol.com). They have
> chemists on staff; their suggestions are the result of tests and
> experiments:
>
> "A commonly practiced method utilizes sulfur powder as a treatment for
> mercury spills.  Tests have shown that sulfur has little or no value in
> creating mercury sulfide.  Mercury sulfide would be safer than than
> mercury metal but sulfur simply does not work.
>
> "Zinc metal dust does react with elemental mercury to form a very safe
> amalgam.  The amalgam formed is more easily collected and disposed of
> than elemental mercury.  If the mercury is 'dirty' with dust and dirt,
> the liklihood of the zinc amalgam being formed is reduced."
>
> (Au or Ag dust amalgamates with Hg like crazy; maybe try that? :-) )
> ....
> Larry Cartwright

This looks like sound advice. Two thoughts come to mind:
silver has been on offer at not much more than $5 a troy ounce.
That's not a completely outrageous cost. But the powder might well
oxidize too readily.

Possibly in the area of urban legends, but an
experimentalist might find it worth a try:
mercury is said to actively amalgamate with aluminum  - so it has
been called a positive danger to airframes.

    One thing that is not a legend: aluminum is sold in a variety
of powder sizes at reasonable prices - amateur incendiaries - er -
I mean firework makers have many uses for it.
brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK