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How to Clean Impurities From Liquid Mercury

Mercury is a heavy metallic element with the unique property of being liquid at standard atmospheric pressure and temperature. Mercury is highly toxic if inhaled, and for this reason it is banned for most household uses, but it is stilled widely used in heavy industry (metals manufacturing) and in scientific applications, and is completely benign if properly handled. Mercury can be used for both research and demonstration purposes in a scientific setting, but some applications may introduce impurities and contaminants into the mercury, which makes it less effective for pure science. Luckily, it is fairly easy to clean because of its non-reactivity and high density.

Things You'll Need

Dirty mercury
500cc glass-stoppered flask
Mercurous nitrate crystals (HgNO2)
Glass funnel
Chamois cloth
Rubber gloves
Bucketk

Instructions

- 1
  Put on the rubber gloves before handling mercury in any way.
- 2
  Place the chamois cloth inside the glass funnel (think of it as a sort of coffee filter for the mercury).
- 3
  Place the glass funnel inside the bottle, and pour the mercury (no more than 100cc at a time, so the bottle doesn't get too heavy) into the filter so that it falls through the chamois cloth, removing any large impurities.
- 4
  Combine 10cc of water with 25 grams of Mercurous nitrate crystals, and pour into the flask with the mercury.
- 5
  Close the flask, and swish the mixture gently for about 5 minutes.
- 6
  Wash the mercury with water in a bucket. The impurities in the metal will have been absorbed by the nitrate crystals, and you'll be left with very shiny, clean-;ooking pure mercury once you pour off the water.

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