09-09-2019, 08:17 PM
deckeda wrote:
[quote=Thrift Store Scott]
Yeah, I was thinking that if it broke all you'd have is mercury with some kitty litter dust stuck in it. I seriously doubt kitty litter would absorb the mercury at all because of the mercury's thickness and high surface tension, but I might be wrong.
Forgot about surface tension. So things like baking soda or flour are also out.
Obviously I'm ignoring all concerns about acidity and alkalinity, to say nothing of 7th Grade chemistry. . That being said I'm a fan of baking soda and vinegar for light cleaning.
Back in the day, if someone spilled mercury in a school lab as much as possible would be collected by merging the droplets and sucking it up with a glass pipette. Then sulfur powder would be spread over the rest to combine with the mercury into a non-soluble compound that could be wiped up. The recovered mercury would need to be purified before use, that included recovering the mercury from the wiped up compound.
As for its vapor, at room temperatures the vapor pressure of mercury is very low. The concerns there are more towards mercury left exposed for many days or from heated items like a fluorescent light that broke while in use. Some mercury vapor is already normally present inside a fluorescent light due the the vacuum inside.