Re: Mercury spills

["David L. Bridges" <dbridge9@IDT.NET>]

With respect to vacuum cleaners, I have done neither the math nor the
experiment but have been told the following, which qualitatively made sense
to me.  The rate of evaporation of mercury is proportional to the exposed
surface area.  The result of vacuuming is to convert a few large drops with
small net surface area into many tiny drops with huge net surface area, thus
potentially raising the evaporation rate to a point where normal
ventillation may no longer be adequate.

Stan Dodds wrote:

> Using a regular vacuum cleaner is probably a bad idea because it is
> unlikely to pick up the dense material effectively and it may disperse
> what it does gather. Incidentally, the Illinois story has the marks of
> an urban legend. Most homes are so well ventilated that vapor from
> modest spills of dirty mercury is not likely to reach hazardous
> levels.
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David L. Bridges
http://maple.LeMoyne.edu/~BridgeDL/

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