Paul R. Potts
So, I should mention that I have a jar of elemental mercury. I have not weighed it, but I would guess that it contains two or three pounds. It is currently in zip-lock bag, in a tin, padded with foam rubber, on a shelf. It came from my stepfather’s basement; I think he probably picked it up from a General Electric salvage lot in the 1970s. He used to bring home all kinds of interesting electronic and mechanical stuff. It was apparently not widely known then that mercury was toxic.
There are a couple of things we could do with this. We could pay someone to dispose of it for us – probably the safest option. We could donate it to someone setting up an element display. We could just keep it as-is and put off making any decision as to its disposition. Or, we could have it ampouled in some way to make it display-worthy for our own element collection, and keep it locked up until the kids are old enough to be trusted around it.
It is somewhat oxidized and not shiny; this can be remedied by squeezing it through cheesecloth or a coffee filter. But although I used to handle this stuff as a kid, and did the filtering procedure before, I am reluctant to do it in our apartment, especially not with a child and a baby on premises. And then I’d have a cheesecloth or coffee filter contaminated with mercury.
What I’d really like is to find someone who would filter it (to “polish it up”) and then put it in a heavy walled and attractive display bottle, top the jar off with argon, and seal it up. This is presumably a dangerous procedure; I don’t even know how this kind of thing is safely done, but it must be done often, at least with smaller quantities, because ampoules like this are included in commercially available element displays.
Presumably, you’d need a vapor hood, and would do it wearing protective gear.
If you know someone who would like to take on a project like this, and who would be willing to accept the risk of a mercury spill, get in touch. It would be especially great to find someone who would do it in exchange for splitting the mercury into two jars, keeping half for his or her own element display.