Looking at Mercury Vapour - Periodic Table of Videos
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2016
- Using a Mercury lamp to reveal dangerous Mercury vapour.
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The take home message is that keeping things dusty can, under some very specific conditions, save your life.
I so have to tell my mum.
My mum must hear of this too
ur mom
Now I have an excuse to not clean a room
Works on my car.
Mercury vapor is the most enchanting form of the metal, people go crazy for it.
hah, i get it
Mad as a hatter
@@Solocat1 From mercury splatter.
Yes thats why lighthouse keepers used to go crazy. At first people thought it was loneliness and isolation but it later turned out to be the mercury vapor
That was such a clever way to show us the vapor coming off the mercury, thanks!
All the fun stuff is poisonous, explosive, or some other type of dangerous. Thats what makes them fun.
Getting an A in your test is not dangerous at all.
+shaheer asyraff
Achievement =/= fun
Why?
Achievement = gratification
Gratification =/= fun
Why?
1.) Sense of gratification/achievement is a result of serotonin being present in the brain 2.) Fun is a result of dopamine being present in the brain, why you laugh, and enjoy media
Therefore, no, not like getting an A on a test.
GarioTheRock Someone just can't have literal consent.
+GarioTheRock in that case exercises is fun too ?
Mercury travels through the air due to the effects of his winged sandals.
This comment is underrated.
Cool joke.
And then he drank it through a straw at the end, because it's ok to drink :D
I think he used a Pasteur pipette and not a straw
So he's a fancy drinker. Big deal.
Kenneth Binaday Because it's mercury. Mercury liquid isn't as toxic as the vapor, organomercury componds (Many of which are among the worst of the worst for really toxic componds) or its salts, but still.
Hair of the dog that bit you, old boy.
***** Welcome to more than 6 months ago.
When you get older you will understand sarcasm.
Very cool video!
I was thinking of you while watching this, and there you are!
I must have gotten ten pm's and FB messages telling me about this video. Hey, I'm all ready a sub!
outside the air is almost constantly moving. he's absolutely fine.
Ofcourse you would be here as well lol. :)
Think you can pull off Mercury shotgun slugs now? Haha
I recall my dad, when I was quite young, telling me of an experiment he performed while obtaining a chemistry degree. He attempted to measure whether dangerous levels of mercury vapor would be produced at room temperature from the neck of standard containers. He said it seemed that unless you really got your face into it, you wouldn't have much of a problem... I'll have to ask him about it again some time.
I honestly have to thank you from teaching more about chemistry to beyond what I already have leaned about it and to the professor you have taught me a lot from my common knowledge of chemicals and elements
If you want to see a more practical application for Mercury vapour, you can see how it is used to make photographic images in the Daguerrotype process, which in fact was an early form of chemical vapour deposition, used in industry today to create modern electronic circuits! A lot of old Victorian photo processes led to discoveries in science that we still use today, it's a fascinating subject! :)
Amazing to see this comment, yes! I make Daguerrotypes, and use Mercury. Very scary material, knowing that each time I am exposed to it, it accumulates in me.
Excellent demonstration! I love these sort of experiments where you can directly observe how things behave and develop an intuitive feel for it, as opposed to working off theory and measurements.
thanx doc.that was a timely message for those that work with mercury like me,a placer miner.
This was an incredible video. Thank you so much.
What an awesome experiment! I've never Thought, that mercury can produce such an amount of vapour. I think all chemistry students should have seen this experiment, before working with mercury thermometers, or mercury itself.
I expected to see a faint amount of mercury, but that was really a torrent of mercury vapor! When I saw it, I got a cold chill up my spine for a moment.
What an elegant demonstration! You've out done yourself again Professor Poliakoff!
Fascinating as always
Very cool video! I hope there are more coming soon...
I have dozens of vacuum tubes, mostly very large power rectifiers, with many tablespoons of mercury in each. Sometimes the envelope (glass) looks very dirty, but if I fire them up (apply power to the heater), the mercury literally condenses, evaporates with continued heat, and you end up with a very shiny, 'clean-looking' tube again at some point. So I knew mercury vapor was used quite often in a vacuum, but I had no idea it could evaporate like that at atmospheric pressure! Thanks for the new knowledge. :)
Fascinating, ty for this!
this experiment is so clever ! i love it !
I love their videos on mercury and dangerous elements haha :)
Prof. Poliakoff is one of those people i really enjoy listening to. Doesn't really matter what the subject is about
Periodic Videos and Numberphile are the two channels I enjoy watching although I was never interested in science due to my school subjects. I love how you can convey knowledge to your viewers while keeping it interesting. Keep it up :)
Beside these two there is also Sixty Symbols. It is physical channel and has the same spirit as these two. I recommend you to check it.
Lukáš J. Thanks :)
Hello,
I love your videos! Could you please make a video on metal alloys with low melting points like fields metal or galinstan?
Thank you so very much! I didn't know about the vapor. Even though I don't use mercury very often, almost never, I have used it and have been exposed to it. Next time around I'll take precautions against the vapor it gives off. Thanks again.
Very nice video!
Waited for this episode for a while
wow I thought mercury was more stable.
So if I had an open dish of mercury it would evaporate over some period of time?
i'm curious about this too. i had no idea it let off any vapor. i'd be fascinated if it evaporated like other liquids. yeah science.
Well yea most liquids do
Very slowly yes.
All liquids have an equilibrium vapour pressure to which they tend towards. In fact, so do solids, the just evaporate much more slowly (providing it is a solid at the same temperature as its surroundings).
Mercury evaporates at a rate of, I think 1/1600 times the rate of water at room temperature. You can think of vapour pressure in terms of humidity of any substance, not just water.
Could you make a video about thiomersal and its effects? I just thought it would be a nice addition to this video
Make a video about extracting/refining metals.
Dude you've done great work please take a break I don't want you working so hard
Nice video.
Hello, thank you for your video, it would be interesting to know how much evaporates at the dental clinic 😯still many people not aware of it
is this a UV-C light? or just a normal blacklight?
i really want to recreate this experiment, but don't know what light to use.
So if you're using a fume hood to work with mercury, where does the vapor go? Does is just vent outside and mix with the atmosphere, or is there some kind of way to trap it?
So is it in a constant process of vaporization or is the energy emitted by the uv-lamp being absorbed by the Hg and that's causing it to vaporize?
My take home message is be terrified of old high-school science buildings!
I don't know much about Nottingham University but can people in the US apply to go there?
Hello
How to make red mercury sulfide reaction ..?
Can you share your videos?
So, Ten ml. Hg in an open Petri dish at room temp will evaporate over what period of time?
100C seems like a pretty high temperature to me, especially for something as volatile as mercury. How much vapor would there have been at room temperature or even body temperature?
Impressive!
great video, i loved the technique with using the lamp to see the vapor coming off the mercury. i wish there was another video expounding on the possibility of the mercury vapor being contained in a closed copper loop and its potential to possibly pass a current through it.
or perhaps how one could change mercury into gold using high voltage electricity. maybe say using hydrogen cell batteries to generate enough voltage. idk if these things are possible, but it would be nice to see it.
You can't change mercury into gold using electricity, no matter how high the voltage, as it won't change the number of protons in the nucleus (the proton number is what determines what element the atom is). Gold *can* be created in a particle accelerator where atoms (such as mercury) are smashed together and fuse to form a different element.
In the very early days of photography, the process called Daguerreotype required the use of mercury vapor to develop the image. The photographer had to be in a light-tight place to do this so they set up tents when processing the photographic plates and went into these small confined spaces with a pot of heated mercury. Many of them suffered great health issues because of this practice. By the 1850's the process had changed and the mercury process was thankfully fazed out.
I'm not a chemist but I really love this video even I can't understands some terms.
Can you do a video on NaHS (sodium hydorsulphide)? Please...
Make a video about touch powder!
Prof, can you explain how mercury (denatured?) is used in Ayurvedic medicine? thank you!
Can ozone generators help remove ozone vapor? It would seem mercury might be oxidized by ozone and then precipitate out.
how long does it take for a 1 ml sample of mercury to completely evaporate?
thank you for pointing out the danger of mercury vapor.
give this man a nobel prize.
Well, he *was* dubbed "Sir" by the queen herself, wahre m wasn't he?
Apparently the reason behind the mad hatter from Alice in wonderland is that hat makers used to coat their hats with mercury to protect the fabric or something, so they ended up a bit insane.
Specifically, I think the name "Mad Hatter" comes from the expression "mad as a hatter," and that expression comes from the practice you described.
They didn't coat the hats in Mercury. They soaked the fur pelts in some Mercury compound to separate the short fur from the animal hides. As one can imagine, the Mercury exposure levels were insane and caused mad hatter syndrome
Wow! I had no idea that much vaporated
Thanks for the info, Watch out for those Florescent lamps ....you know the CFL's we are told to use..........
yeah, you've been told not to break them for 40 years
Lol Sevilla
Please do a video about bismuth i would really like to know
should do a video on dimethylmercury
Would be interesting to see how long it takes for this mercury vapor to tarnish powdered sulfur.
What happens to the mercury vapor?
Since it is a heavy metal i assume that it will fall down and condense at some point.
how long would it take for the dish of vapor to completely vaporize?
The rate is 0.056 mg per hour, per square cm of surface area, at 24 Celsius.
You can do the math :)
The saying "Mad as a Hatter" derives from the hat - making factories of yesteryear using Mercury vapour somewhere in the process of hat-making, and the workers, after breathing it in, sent them doo-lally.
Will applying a electrostatic charge to mercury lower it boiling point?
Ever since watching Terminator 2, I've always suspected that liquid metal was dangerous to humans. Now I know for sure.
You should do the experiment with magnesium and phosphoric acid
100 degrees centigrade is the boiling point of water - 212 degrees Fahrenheit. What would the vaporization of mercury look like at room temperature - 20 degrees C? Would you be able to see it in your video?
is the vapour gaseous mercury? or some other form?
How long would it take to notice the effects of mercury toxicity through vapor inhalation?
Ignore Tony. You'd notice it based on how much you accumulate in your body, so the real question is how much you'd need to accumulate for to feel the effects within a year?
Can you make a video about Borax?
How much vapour is given off when the mercury is at room temperature?
What is the symptoms you get after breathing in mercury?
You would be horrified at what happened at school in the 1970s. The teacher joked that we were transporting mercury away from the room via our bodies. We were using it openly in the room.
A little post processing could have made the fumes more visible in this video. The body does have a method, although slow, for removing mercury. Dentists test their urine to see how much mercury exposure they have received (from amalgam fillings.) Thus mercury does get removed from the body.
Mercury dental amalgams outgas mercury vapor in quantities easily observable using the method demonstrated in this video. I have been considering replacing the ones I have with non metallic resin.
Ok that's scary. It's the same with a little drop of mercury at home temperature ?
Much, much less
yes
It depends on surface area, mercury temperature, and air temperature, but yes. Its toxic.
I'm fine after breathing it in... I think.
Yes, but for little drops and single time exposures it isn't a big deal. Chronic, day after day, though, is a problem and you would want a fume hood.
can you use some sort of mask or a gas mask to prevent the vaper from going in your face?
Never, NEVER do that. Just as Awkward Whale said you need a fume hood. I used a gas mask to handle some sulfur compounds back in highschool and my eyes bled for a week (painless, but I looked like a zombie). The scariest thing is that it was caused by a really small fume according to my doctor!
3m makes a cartridge for mercury/chlorine to meet niosh standards. im not up to date on my haz waste training, but i suspect it is supposed to be used with a full face mask and bunny suit tho... we used a similar cartridge and method when cleaning up spent lead in the bullet traps at the gun range i used to work at.
i ask because you could use the mask, with a coat, and be safe because not all experements can be done in a hood
Out of curiosity which wasn't mentioned in the video, Does mercury eventually evaporate away?
depends on the temperature... at the right temperature, yeah it does
Don't you just want to climb thru the computer and fill some of these people that make rude comments with mercury? People need to grow up. Thank you for that informative info I work with mercury in gold and silver mining and had no idea it fumed. I always use ppe and over the years have moved to much safer alternatives but still charge it sometimes on fines.
can you do video on 'red mercury'?
So how safe is it when a light bulb or shop bulb breaks? Should I evacuate the room, or what?
If the lamp was off, just sweep it up (don't use a vacuum). The mercury is bound in solid form when the lamp is cold.
If the lamp was on, ventilate the room for 5 to ten minutes, then sweep it up. And don't eat a tuna sandwich after that because it will have approx. give you the same mercury exposure than staying in the room with the broken lamp.
If the vapour is inhaled (over time), what are the effects of Mercury poisoning?
mental illness, mercurial personality, cancer, diabetes, tremor, endocrine system shut down and other diseases.
so if Mercury is constantly releasing a vapor, does mercury eventually dry up, or evaporate over time?
if its a large amount mercury we wont live long enough to see it evaporate. and if it did vaporize the vaporized mercury will eventually come back down from the air and land on something else anyway.
if encountering an accident of breaking a mercury thermometer, try to cover it right away with a big piece of cloth or paper nearby to prevent inhalation of mercury.
You'rr supposed to scatter sulfur powder over the affected area. Mercury has highest binding affinity to sulfur do this prevents vapor emissions ;)
Tell me how to find sulphur powder when you're at home. Most of the people don't have that at home in this planet. Even when you're in a lab it's not sure you can find it. When you are wasting time looking for sulphur, the Hg would be gone quickly and you breath that stuff into your lung and start destroying your kidney and other organs. Just be practical.
Vapor pressure of Hg isn't high enough to be "gone quickly" and sulphur isn't that hard to find if you can already buy mercury.I buy sulphur in the same place they sell pet food,pest control chemicals,rat traps and fishing equipment(don't know how they call this in america,in Brazil we call it aviário,because they sell bird food and birds like parakeets and cockatiels there too)I think you can buy in stores that sell stuff for agriculture like copper sulphate(a fungicide)and herbicides.Actually,even the little market here sells sulphur powder together with salts like ammonium chloride and spices like turmeric and curry.Yeah,my neighborhood is weird.
Upon encountry call emergency and evacuate to Mars.
does mercury have triple point?
Humans can see uv light but the lenses in our eyes block it so if you remove the lens ( which was a treatment back in the day) you could see uv light
So you would get UV sight but distorted eyesight?
It is said that the famous painter Claude Monet could see some UV light due to a surgery.
If you removed the lens I dont think you;d be able to see much of anything lol
KWG
Ever heard of cataract surgery? The lens is being removed and with special glasses the patiens are able to see again, even without an artificial lens implant.
What about lead is there vapour too? Especially at room temperature and at ≈400°C?
only while it's liquid.
I can't find a state map of lead, but if it is liquid it will have critical points that are gas. The only thing in question is does led sublimate, that I do not know.
Given the right temperature and pressure, I can thing of nothing that won't sublimate.
Nicole K Same, just didn't know if it was realistic or not in earth temps with earth pressures or not
I don't know the exact answer. However, I suspect the conditions would have to be pretty unnatural.
what about gold and silver vapours??? also i would like to see more extensive barking dog exspiraments in a u shapped tube. thanks professor and Neil!
TAOFLEDERMAUS and Cody'sLab both in the comment section of Period Videos?
Brb, off to find every video on mercury I can.
Thanks for warning of dangers of MERCURY.
Does this mean that a puddle of mercury would eventually completely evaporate? How long would that take? If it is producing visible (with a lamp) vapor then I am surprised that it is not evaporating fast enough that pools of mercury under old laboratory floorboards would not completely disappear.
i would guesstimate maybe 10 years, more if there is not much air circulation, more if its partially covered in dust.
The heat makes it go faster, and the UV light could also make it go faster because of the photoelectric effect described by Einstein. Those photons are definitely powerful enough to ionize mercury, they were created by the same process in reverse.
They should hit it with a powerful pulsed UV laser and see if they can make some mercury vapor rings.
Ya, vapor pressure kinda means what pressure needed to keep the thing in equilibrium. So your soda, it doesn't actually go completely flat, only flat enough so that an equal amount is coming into solution as it is out. That is a slightly different gas law, but very similar. (Boyle's Law vs I think it is Raoult's law?) Same for mercury, and as you can imagine, mercury basically doesn't exist in regular air.
Christopher Willis
Unless you live anywhere near a coal fire power plant, in which case a whole lot of mercury exists in regular air :)
Hey guys! I just finished my chemistry exam today and I didn't know what lead nitrate could be used to test for. Do you know what it could have been? We were asked what kind of ion it would be used to test for.
It will be used to test for anything which reacts with a nitrate Ion.
Just google it.
A Halide ion
+TheAlexagius THATS IT! Damn it. I was so sure about that yesterday and my mind went blank in the exam. That's so frustrating.
+TheAlexagius In that case I got silver nitrate mixed up with lead nitrate because that is another test for halides isn't it.
It is used to detect halogen ions (e.g. PbCl2 is not easily solvable).
Should I just assume that the fume hood vents through a bunch of filters and not straight to the walkway beside the chem lab ?
Industrial HEPA filters, designed to filter/neutralize a variety of chemicals using active charcoal, are being used. As a second layer of protection, the exhaust still goes to the rooftop into a small chimney. If you buy a quality fume hood and have it installed, that comes with it, together with the fans and the shatter-proof glass and the heat and corrosion resistant ceramics surfaces.
What about making a video on nitrogen triiodide?
Would it be possible to cast a bell out of solid mercury? That would be very interesting.
Yea, if you could keep it below -40 C
Would Mercury eventually evaporate given enough time?
Hello guys. I'm watching these videos and Im scared AF! I broke thermometer today in the kitchen and mercury breads were all over the room. I opened the windows imediatelly and I picked all the visible mercury drops. I made like 0,5 cm ball from them and put it to the glass bottle. Then I vacuum cleaned the room, and double cleaned the floor with mops. I threw away everything I used. But I am sure there are some tiny drops inside the holes of the floor, or in some hard to reach areas. But when I picked the pea-sized ball, I hope the rest of it is not so harmful, is it? I am very worried about my health and my family, after watching these youtube vids and reading some articles online. I don't know what should I do now. I called emergency, but they said, it's too small amount to harm, I just need to pick it all and it will be fine.
Have anyone ever heard of mercury poisoning due thermometer break?
Hi Martin, just had a similar experience… how are you and your family? 🙏
How do you remove a grease stain from cement using chemistry?
I argue that a fume hood can make it more dangerous because lower pressure = more evaporation so one would get more mercury fumes. So I propose a heavier than air fume covered that is ventilated from below.
it doesnt matter if more is created cause it's in a fume hood
If mercury is vaporizing then does that mean eventually it will all evaporate away? And how does such a dense heavy matter float in air?
Radium in old labs is also an issue.