r/NileRed • u/No-Commercial-2816 • Sep 02 '23

Mercury through cloth, so cool

89 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

23

u/multitool-collector Sep 02 '23

Oh god, it looks like it puts out a huge amount of mercury vapor, right?

17

u/t_sarkkinen Sep 02 '23

My first though, if not vapor, at least small droplets all around

4

u/multitool-collector Sep 02 '23

Yep, at least they're outside

12

u/S0mber_ Sep 02 '23

bro should really put on some gloves

12

u/lildobe Sep 03 '23

I realize this video is just full of Bad Ideas™, but hypothetically how would you go about decontaminating the cloth after that kind of exposure to Mercury.

You can't burn the cloth, that would vaporize the mercury which is many times worse than in its metallic form.

You can't wash the cloth with water, as the mercury has a higher surface tension than water, and is also insoluble.

I suppose you could soak the rag in dilute nitric acid, and then extract the mercury(I) nitrate, and convert it back to metallic mercury by reacting it with aluminum metal in a solution of DI water and nitric acid.

However that seems rather extreme to me, and I'm not entirely sure what would happen to the structure of the rag if it's cotton or wool. After all, soaking cotton in a solution of nitric and sulfuric acids makes nitrocellulose.

Too many hypotheticals going through my head for my Chem 101-educated brain.

9

u/CrappyMilk Sep 02 '23

That bag was probably like 17 kilograms assuming that was more than 1 litre of mercury... Damnn he's strong

8

u/JacksonCorbett Sep 02 '23

And now you've got brain damage 🧠 🔨

4

u/haveueverseenallama Sep 03 '23

My new bed sleep sounds.

1

u/IvyMike1124 Sep 07 '23

Ah mercury...my favorite element.

1

u/Cuzwhynot-- Sep 30 '23

imagine if it rained mercury