Anyone collect mercury?

Well, to be picky, the sulfur oxidizes the mercury to make mercuric sulfide. It's very different from amalgamation, althought the end result is similar in a way (no more liquid mercury or mercury vapor)

 

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The mercury would evaporate out under 700 degrees and would stay out until the temperature decreased under that , by which time the gold would be solidified. If then at a temperature below the mercury boiling point, mercury was reintroduced into the gold, it would re-enter into an amalgam. Generally then, melting of gold was done in open air, unfortunately even if it was known that mercury had been used to concentrate the ore, as mercury and workers ( even in Switzerland ) were not well protected.

They only scenario I could see to support it ~is if they purposely added mercury to gold after the bars were poured and cooled, but this would lower the sp. gr. and indicate a lesser karat content and value when tested.

but it is much more likely to me that there is little to the "tale", IMO.

 

I can buy this. I'm not convinced the "stories" I originally referred to were not true, but what you said also makes one wonder if they were made up. (at least concerning the mercury in the gold)

 

Who is the master when the student has plagiarized (in a very watered down way) what the master argued in the "Are ASE's legal tender?" thread? Think upon that grasshopper.

PS I have heard it said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. I will take your attempt as a compliment.

 

No, of course not, why ever be persuaded from what you want to believe?

I heard stories they found traces of DNA in the Swiss gold that is direct matches to prominent American Jewish families. I am trying to represent them based on the argument that if their DNA is in the gold, it must have belonged to relatives who disappeared in the concentration camps.

 

You think too highly of yourself. The only thing I remember about that topic is you were flat wrong and I wasn't the only one to say it. I don't plagiarise and I challenge you to prove it. However if I were to plagiarise someone's work it would at least be from someone who was credible on the subject and whose work I respect. Therefore have no worries in regards to whatever you post here as I won't be putting my name on it.

 

Just let it out. It is not easy to come in out of the dark and admit you've moved into the light.

 

That is very very simple 1 liquid ounce is a measure of volume
the volume measure is based on water 1 liquid ounce of water weighs 1 oz, 1pint (16 liquid ounces) = 1lb
1 liquid ounce of mercury weighs 1 lb (actualy slightly less if you wanna be exact is about 1.13 oz to the pound)



Bleh decto beat me to it

 

Not by organic chemists I am sure. DNA unzips ( denatures, melts) under 200 degrees F. for a PCR. Cooling back, it will generally self heal. PCR can add nucleotide unit to allow a replication of the original DNA, so still useable. But increase it over 400 degree F. causes irreparable damage to it ( after all it is organic material ). Cremation temperature ( 1700 degrees F., may vary by state, country) is lower than the melting of gold, so all tissue remains would be ash. Even the TV CSI can't find DNA in cremated material. So no. IMO.

 

"High" is a relative term. A gold bar refined from other sources might have say 1 part per billion of mercury in it while a bar refined from gold amalgum that was once 50% mercury might end up with 10 parts per billion of mercury in it. In both cases you still have gold that is better than .9999 fine gold, but one has ten times as much mercury in it. Melting it down will drive off the mercury but getting it all out is another matter. Also the gold/mercury mix will melt at a much lower temperature than the pure gold does. This is why "pure" metals are never really pure. it is very difficult to get every last little trace of everything out. In the case the gold from the Swiss vaults has a little more mercury in it than is normally seen so it is safe to assume that the source of the gold had more mercury in it.

Are you sure you're a lawyer?
Oh to accomplish that task, I see.

Heat the amalgam in a closed container that has a small amount of air forced in to maintain a positive pressure. Vent the container with a flue pipe that runs downward a little ways before turning to rise back upward. Put a cooling waterjacket around the rising flue pipe. As water flows through the jacket it cools the gases in the flue pipe condensing the mercury which runs back down the pipe to collect at the bend when the pipe starts going up. The liquid mercury can be tapped off the bottom of the flue pipe here and reused. The blower in the enclosed container ensures the boiled off mercury fumes travel down the flue pipe. You can probably recover better than 98% of your mercury this way. Any still remaining in the container that recombines with the gold as it cool will be in the top surface of the gold bar, lump whatever. Shave off this top surface and add it to the next batch of amalgam. Now you are recovering better than 99% of the mercury from the amalgam and most of what is left can be removed from the gold by other refining techniques.

Which is exactly how the old time miners used to do it, only they didn't have a propane burner.

 

Yep. It's not the case that heating the alloy above mercury's boiling point causes all the mercury to explode out at once. You can think of an amalgam (or any other alloy) as a solution of one metal in another, and like any other solution, its behavior over a range of temperatures can get complicated.

Remember, water melts at 32 deg. F., and oxygen boils at -300 F, but water generally contains enough dissolved oxygen to support fish and other life forms.

 

Since the original question concerned the "rumor" that some swiss gold was derived from melting teeth that had mercury in the dental work. If the difference was in the billionth percentages, I doubt anyone would have noticed.

I would like a factual reference on this as there is no change to the crystal structure of the gold from mercury as when mixing gold with say silver or copper, that do alter the crystal structure.

And are you saying that a person today shouldn't worry about doing the same thing ( with or without a propane burner). ??

Of course I didn't mention time and exploding or rushing out of the gold. Maybe there are some exotic smelting vessels that use induction or laser based heating arrangement, but generally I think most would find it difficult to accelerate the temperature so rapidly the mercury couldn't boil off slowly. Yes, vapor pressure of the mercury accumulating in the air would prevent all of the mercury from being boiled off, so purity couldn't reach 100%, but too minor to usually be a factor.

Boil a flask of water in a flask with a neck just large enough for the fish, cool, and don't shake or agitate the water and put a gold fish into it and time how long it lives. Do the same only this time put the setup on a stirrer with a bar in the water. Boiled water has very little oxygen in it, water needs agitation so oxygen can dissolve and agitate from the surface downward to support life beyond anaerobic organisms.

 

I prefer my fish fried actualy...

 

I know it's a bit late, and off topic... but why is this in the "bullion" section? There's clearly no way to turn mercury into a bullion item. Shouldn't this be in general discussion?