What is mercury worth?

This is sad, and quite unnecessary. You pick up all the drops, and check it isn't spilt under the bench, and you'll be fine. Anything remaining which is too small to see is insufficient to cause harm. The biggest danger is if you get a hidden spill, which doesn't get cleaned up.

Best wishes,

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy
Loading thread data ...

It isn't worth a lot, unless you have large quantities that you can sell to a company which purifies it. I have an almost full 76 lb flask of mercury, which I'm going to use one day for building a real showpiece of a barometer. Probably in an art deco style. I bought the mercury for next to nothing. People just want to get rid of it.

It is insanely cool, though. Great fun to play with. You can float chunks of lead in it. Pour it, play with the drops. It's especially surprising that it has a similar viscosity to water.

You can also pretend that the flasks contain nuclear waste, which is funny.

Best wishes,

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

[ ... ]

They still do that with teeth which don't show in your smile. I got a mercury amalgam filling within the last year in Northern VA.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

On 31 Jul 2008 00:07:12 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "DoN. Nichols" quickly quoth:

I did, too, and it surprised the hell out of me when I heard that familiar crunch and squeal of the burnisher, packing in the amalgam. I didn't think they used merc fillings any more.

-- Imagination is more important than knowledge... Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Reply to
Larry Jaques

I asked my dentist about it recently when I got a filling replaced, he used the modern plastic filling but said that mercury amalgam was still an option and was more durable than the plastic fillings.

Reply to
David Billington

In the 1960s, the standard lab cleanup approach for spilled mercury was to sprinkle flowers of sulfur on the floor, sweep it around, wait a while, and vacuum it all up. One can do this periodically to catch undetected spills, as the sulfur is cheap and harmless.

I recall reading this in lab handbooks of that day as well.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Sweeping is a bad idea. It breaks up the droplets.

Here are some recommendations from EPA. They sound a lot less draconian than some of the things we've heard from other sources:

formatting link

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

The sulphur is a common method, although I have read at least once that it is ineffective. I would be interested to know if this is true.

The vacuum cleaner is a really bad idea. It will just help to vaporise any remaining liquid mercury.

Best wishes,

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

I've heard the assertion, but don't know if it's true either. I'm a little suspicious, because sulfur was considered effective for at least a century, that is until mercury became anathema.

The Handbook of Batteries used to have a section on mercury batteries. In older sections, it said that you could extend the shelf life of a mercury battery by freezing it (true of all batteries, actually), and gave a helpful little chart plotting life versus storage temperature. (The battery doesn't really freeze in a domestic freezer.) In later editions, the section became vestigal, and it was claimed that freezing didn't help, but no reference was cited, or reason given for the change. Then it disappeared altogether. You can probably guess the timeframe. And motivation.

Not if the flowers of sulfur are along for the ride. That was the whole point of using flowers of sulfur.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Yup. I got one a month ago. Still popular because it's cheap and lasts a long time and is a lot safer than it was. My former dentist had been a mechanical engineer before he became a dentist. (Just think of all those years in university...) He told me (and showed me, because I was doing some mechanical design work at the time and we talked as much as I could with my mouth full of his fingers and tools and rubber dams and air drills and vacuums; my very own little machine shop) that the mercury and silver were now prepackaged in a small plastic vial that has two compartments. The amounts of each element in the vial are very precisely measured; it was the surplus of mercury or poor mixing that used to cause problems when dentists had to measure out the bits and mash them together. Anyway, this vial is put into a shaker that vibrates it so hard that the barrier between the compartments breaks and the mix occurrs, very violently and completely. Any leaching of mercury out of your teeth will likely take a lot longer to kill you than the other things we face.

Dan

Reply to
Dan_Thomas_nospam

you do realise that the mercury that leaches out of fillings is removed from your body in your urine. it doesnt usually accumulate in your system. Stealth Pilot

Reply to
Stealth Pilot

If the sulphur method works, to use the vacuum cleaner afterwards is probably okay. But I've heard of people just vacuuming up the drops of mercury, which is a really bad idea.

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

No doubt. Most people do not read the instructions.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.