Mercury and magnet. Mercury is a metal with amazing properties. Required Tools for Collecting Mercury

including mercury. Why is mercury still often used as a thermometric liquid, although this substance is dangerous? Because mercury has a number of unique properties that make it irreplaceable. This is a very interesting substance, so we devoted two articles to it. This article deals with the properties of mercury.

Mercury is a chemical element of the periodic table, a simple inorganic substance, a metal. Known to mankind for more than seven thousand years. It was used in the 5th century. BC. in Mesopotamia, mercury was known in ancient China and the Middle East. It was obtained by simple firing of cinnabar on fires, and then gold and silver were smelted with its help.

Basic properties

It is denoted by the symbol Hg (hydrargyrum, translated from Greek as “liquid silver”). This name was given to the element by the alchemists.

There is not so much mercury on the planet, but it is very dispersed: it is found in air, water, and in most rocks. It occurs in native form in the form of drops, but rarely. Much more often - in the composition of minerals and clays. Included in the composition of more than 30 minerals, cinnabar (HgS) is of industrial importance. Mercury is now obtained in a much more technological way than in ancient times, but the meaning of the process has remained the same: firing cinnabar.

Silvery, highly mobile liquid; the only metal that under normal conditions has a liquid state of aggregation. It becomes solid at t -39 °С. However, mercury is a heavy metal. Due to its high density, 1 liter of reagent weighs almost 14 kg. Conducts current well. Diamagnetic. When heated, it expands evenly - it is thanks to this property that it is still widely used as a thermometric liquid. In the solid state, it has malleability characteristic of metals. Practically insoluble in water, does not wet glass. Mercury and its vapors are odorless; the vapors are colorless, glow bluish-green upon application of an electric discharge and emit in the x-ray spectrum.

From a chemical point of view

Mercury is quite inert. It reacts with oxygen at t +300 °C, and already at +340 °C the oxide decomposes back. Under normal conditions, it reacts with ozone. Does not react with non-concentrated acid solutions, but dissolves in aqua regia (a mixture of concentrated hydrochloric and nitric acids) and concentrated nitric acid. Does not react with nitrogen, carbon, boron, silicon, phosphorus, arsenic, germanium. Reacts with atomic hydrogen, and does not react with molecular. With halogens it forms mercury halides. With sulfur, selenium, tellurium - chalcogenides. With carbon, it forms extremely stable and, as a rule, toxic organomercury compounds.

It easily reacts under normal conditions with a solution of potassium permanganate in alkali and with chlorine-containing substances. This property is used to remove mercury spills. The dangerous area is filled with chlorine-containing bleach such as "ACC", "Whiteness" or ferric chloride.

Forms alloys with many metals - amalgams. Iron, tungsten, molybdenum, vanadium and some other metals are resistant to amalgamation. Forms with metals mercurides - intermetallic compounds.

About the dangers of mercury

Mercury belongs to substances of the 1st hazard group, super-dangerous. Dangerous for humans, plants and animals, for the environment. Included in the list of 10 substances that are socially hazardous to health according to WHO. Has a cumulative effect. For details on how mercury affects the human body and what safety measures should be taken, read our article "". Here we only mention that it is not mercury that is poisonous, but its vapors and soluble compounds. Mercury itself is not absorbed in the human gastrointestinal tract and is excreted unchanged. This was learned from suicidal losers who tried to commit suicide by drinking mercury. They survived! And even intravenous injections of mercury do not lead to death.

Mercury is not allowed to be transported by aircraft. And it's not because it's toxic. The thing is that it easily dissolves aluminum and its alloys. Accidental spills may cause damage to the aircraft body.

Mercury is a very dangerous volatile substance. Mercury vapors are the most harmful, so being in a room where they are present is dangerous to health. Broken by negligence thermometers are sources of severe contamination of residential premises. Today we will tell you what to do and how to collect mercury if the thermometer breaks.

How to collect mercury from a thermometer: an algorithm for your actions

1) Remove occupants from the premises, especially children, by closing the front door so that the vapors do not spread.

2) It is necessary to reduce the temperature in the room, for example, open the window.

3) Cover the place where mercury has spread with wet sheets of newspapers. Put things that have been in contact with mercury in plastic bags, take them out to the balcony or outside.

What can not be done if the thermometer breaks in the room?

1) It is impossible to create drafts during ventilation, so that the smallest particles of mercury do not scatter throughout the room.

2) Do not use an ordinary broom, as mercury balls can rise into the air and cannot be collected.

3) If you use a vacuum cleaner, it will spray all over the room. In addition, the device will be infected and will have to be discarded.

4) Mercury-stained clothing should not be washed, as contamination of the washing machine and sewage can occur.

5) You can not throw mercury into the garbage chute, toilet bowl, landfill.

How can you collect mercury from a thermometer?

Until the substance is collected, household members should not enter the room. You need to prepare a metal or glass jar with a tight lid. You will also need a scoop, a brush, a sheet of paper, a medical pear. Wear rubber gloves before picking up mercury from the floor.

1) Carefully raise and lower large fragments from the thermometer into the jar.

2) Using a brush and a scoop, collect small fragments and large drops of mercury.

3) Using a sheet of paper and a brush, sweep away small drops of mercury by carefully lowering them into a jar.

4) Check the cracks in the floor and things in the vicinity of the broken thermometer. With a medical pear with a thin tip, remove mercury from places inaccessible to the brush. Make sure not a drop remains.

5) After collecting mercury, tightly close the jar and carry out wet cleaning in the room using a weak soap and soda solution or a solution of potassium permanganate.

It is much more difficult to collect mercury from a carpet that has a fleecy surface.

Is it possible to collect mercury with a magnet? It is impossible, because nothing will come of it, since mercury is a diamagnet that interacts weakly with a magnetic field, capable of not being attracted, but repelled by a magnet. In addition, when trying to collect mercury in this way, the balls can roll off in different directions.

After collecting large particles of mercury from the carpet, people very often use a vacuum cleaner or take the carpet outside to knock it out. This is wrong, because the person who cleans inhales a significant part of the fumes. At such moments, the best way out is to contact specialized services.

If you managed to collect mercury on your own, you need to tightly close the jar and, in no case, throw it into the garbage chute or trash can in the yard. After all, doing so, you can not only damage the environment, but harm human health. The bank should be handed over to an organization engaged in the disposal of mercury. The address of such an organization can be found by calling the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

To be sure that the room is completely cleared of particles of the substance, you can invite specialists, for example, from the sanitary and epidemiological service, to check the concentration of mercury vapor in the room.

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The Sanskrit poem "Samarangana Sutradhara" describes an amazing apparatus: “Strong and durable should be his body, made of light material, like a large flying bird.Inside should be placed a device with mercury and an iron heating device underneath. By means of the force that is hidden in mercury and which sets in motion the carrying vortex,a person inside this chariot can fly long distances in the sky in the most amazing way. Four strong mercury vessels must be placed inside. When they are heated by controlled fire from iron devices, the chariot will develop the power of thunder thanks to mercury. And she immediately turns into a "pearl in the sky."

Rice. No. 1. Section of the vimana.

Perhaps, the Italian monk Andrea Grimaldi Volande used the mercury propeller in his flights, the principle of which was accidentally discovered during alchemical experiments to turn mercury into gold. Here is how the correspondent of the Leiden Herald newspaper described Grimaldi's car in the issue of October 21, 1751:

“In the machine, in which Andrea Grimaldi Volande can travel seven miles in one hour, a clockwork is installed, its width is 22 feet, it has the shape of a bird, the body of which consists of pieces of cork connected to each other by wire, covered with parchment and feathers. The wings are made from whalebone and guts. Inside the machine are thirty peculiar wheels and chains that serve to lower and raise weights. In addition, six copper pipes partially filled with mercury were used here. The balance is maintained by the experience of the inventor himself. In a storm and in calm weather, he can fly equally fast. This marvelous machine is steered by means of a seven-foot-long tail attached by straps to the bird's legs. As soon as the car takes off, the tail directs it to the left or right, at the request of the inventor.

Three hours later, the bird descends smoothly to the ground, after which the clockwork starts again. The inventor flies constantly at the height of the trees.

Andrea Grimaldi Volande once flew the English Channel from Calais to Dover. From there he flew to London that same morning, where he spoke to renowned mechanics about the design of his machine. The mechanics were very surprised and offered to build a car before Christmas that could fly at a speed of 30 miles per hour ... ".

"... In Italy, a letter is kept from London confirming the flight, and in the French city of Lyon - a scientific study of the "bird" certified by three academicians, which admits that "Grimaldi successfully flew from Calais to Dover in 1751."

Article by V. Kazakov "The stealing car over the English Channel. Magazine "Technique of Youth" No. 3, 1979

Cyrano de Bergerac, communicating with "demons" (aliens), in the book "Another Light, or States and Empires of the Moon", describes the device of the dew-evaporative mover with which he traveled from France to Canada:

"I ascended to heaven, and this is how. First of all, I tied around me a lot of flasks filled with dew; the sun's rays fell on them with such force that the heat, attracting them, lifted me into the air and carried me so high that I was farther but as this attraction forced me to rise too quickly, and instead of approaching the moon, as I had hoped, I noticed, on the contrary, that I was farther from it than when I left, I began to gradually break the flasks one by one the other until I felt that the weight of my body outweighed the force of gravity and that I was descending to the ground.

Rice. No. 2. Journey of Cyrano de Bergerac.

"... how I saw myself surrounded by a multitude of completely naked people. My appearance, it seemed to me that they were extremely surprised, for I was the first person dressed in bottles whom they had ever seen; they noticed, moreover, that when I I move, I almost do not touch the ground, and this contradicted everything that they could explain my outfit with: they did not know that at the slightest movement that I communicated to my body, the heat of midday sunlight lifted me and all the dew around me and that if my bottles were enough, as at the beginning of my journey, I could be lifted into the air before their eyes ... "

At first glance, the description of the dew-evaporative mover can be considered an invention of the author, but not everything is so simple. Cyrano de Bergerac writes that the source of energy for the evaporation of the working fluid is the sun's rays, but does not say what substance the flasks were filled with. Mercury or another liquid with a high coefficient of surface tension can serve as an ideal working fluid for its mover, like for the Vimana, the Grimaldi machine.

What is the principle of operation of the vimana's mercury engine. It turns out it's quite simple. The principle of operation of a mercury propeller is based on the difference in saturated vapor pressure over a convex and concave surface - at the interface between two media (liquid and solid).As is known, the pressure of saturated vapor over a convex surface is greater (a drop), and over a concave surface (meniscus), it is less than over a flat surface of a liquid. The pressure difference is determined by the Thomson (Kelvin) equation.

Thomson (Kelvin) equation:

ln (P/Ps) = ± (2σVm)/ (rRT), where

p is the vapor pressure above the curved meniscus;

ps - saturated vapor pressure over a flat surface;

s is the surface tension of the condensed liquid;

r is the radius of curvature of the meniscus.

σ - surface tension of the liquid, images. when steam condenses

R - gas constant

Vm is the molar volume of the liquid.

If, in accordance with the ancient description of the vimana, mercury is heated in a closed metal vessel to a certain temperature, then as a result of the evaporation of mercury in the vessel, saturated vapor is formed, which will settle in the form of drops on its upper surface, provided that the "dew point" is created. As a result of the difference in pressure of saturated steam on the convex and concave surfaces, an upward force F 1 appears. The lifting force will depend on the surface tension coefficient of the working fluid and the droplet size. The smaller the droplet size, the greater the difference in saturation vapor pressure. The effect becomes noticeable when the size of the mercury droplets is about 10 to minus 5 m.

Rice. No. 3. Principle of operation and schematic arrangement of the vimana mercury engine.

In the figure number 3, which depicts an ancient vimana. On the left is a drop of mercury (yellow circle), concave and convex menisci (drops) on the surface of the liquid. On the right is a section of the vimana. At the bottom is a "heating device". A propulsion device consisting of four sections partially filled with mercury. Two vertical rods are heat pipes, which provide the most efficient transfer of heat from the heater to other sections of the vimana.
Vimanas, in the distant past, did indeed fly. Mercury propulsion is a simple, reliable and economical way to move in space.

Warning:

1. Beware! Mercury vapor cannot be called a useful substance for the human body.

2. Attention. Saturated vapor pressure of mercury at (critical point) reaches

1460 atmospheres.

Descriptions and principle of operation of other movers - in the blog: