#80, good 'ol Hg: When you find 1 lb of mercury in the glovebox

[mrbigstuff]

[hal]

I was walking home from class one day on UCSD campus when I was confronted by a road block and detour. Then I saw several people in space suits walking into a building. I asked around - apparently a 500ml flask of mercury was dropped and shattered and this was the cleanup crew.

[NewtonMP2100]

....Mercury....or....Hermes....??

[Carm]

hal wrote:
I was walking home from class one day on UCSD campus when I was confronted by a road block and detour. Then I saw several people in space suits walking into a building. I asked around - apparently a 500ml flask of mercury was dropped and shattered and this was the cleanup crew.

You can’t be too cautious.
miley-laughing001:

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Not sure, but I think loose powdered sulfur in a box would result in more legal issues than a sealed bottle of Hg.

Some states regulate the sale. I agree with trying to contact a local Community College/high school chemistry teacher to see if they want a donation. Amazon is selling 100g of Hg for ~$30, so a full pound might be worth over $70 to someone specifically allowed to utilize it for work.

[JoeH]

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.

[cbelt3]

I still recall playing with mercury in the chem lab at high school... without gloves or vent hood or any HAZMAT stuff.

Guess that explains a lot...

[decay]

Try floating a penny on it!

I did that once with a jar I found in a basement.

[GGD]

If all else fails...

http://forums.macresource.com/list/3

[Racer X]

If the former owner was a shooter, you can remove lead from a barrel by plugging one end of the barrel, filling with mercury, and plugging other end. Not sure the chemical reason, but it works very well.