Mercury - The STRANGEST LIQUID METAL!

[Music] after taking temperature with two thermometers it turns out that the electric one measures faster and more precisely and everything is okay why do we still use archaic mercury thermometers and what properties does this unusual liquid metal have so let's find out [Music] out of all the elements in the periodic table of chemical elements only four of them can be in a liquid state under normal conditions these are gallium season bromine and mercury the last two elements are extremely hard to freeze solid because their freezing points are way lower than zero degrees celsius because of being extremely scarce in earth's crust it's extremely hard to find this liquid metal in nature few people have seen naturally occurring mercury near its deposits this metal is mostly extracted from cinnabar which is the most abundant mercury containing mineral which contains two violent mercury sulfide such as caroline chemical since the time of ancient rome cinnabar powder has been used as a scarlet pigment if this powder is heated to a high temperature cinnabar will break down into its components which is sulfur and metallic mercury which create a beautiful real mercury mirror on the walls of the container upon further distillation of mercury vapors drops of this precious metal could be collected in the receiver because at room temperature this liquid metal made people experience undescribable feelings since long ago mercury has been attributed with unusual and even mystical properties some even tried to cure different illnesses with this metal whereas alchemist of that time wanted to create a so-called philosopher's stone capable of turning any material into gold however all their attempts were futile because this metal doesn't have neither any curable nor any other paranormal properties and if it's not handled properly it can even do a lot of harm the thing is when merkel is exposed to the ear it actively evaporates because of its abnormally high vapor pressure this becomes evident when a drop of mercury is lead by ultraviolet light with a resonant wavelength entire clouds made of these metals vapors can be seen on elimination screen this vapor is extremely toxic and dangerous to people as well as all mercury compounds that is why this metal belongs to the class of extremely toxic and heavy elements that is so because mercury ions easily interfere with the work of many enzymes especially in brain neurons liquid mercury itself is quite a heavy and expensive metal having a density of more than 13 grams per cubic centimeter this container with 4 grams of mercury weighs more than 50 grams and cost about 80 euros that's why this metal is a little bit more expensive than silver if we take a look at the table of elements abundance in earth's crust mercury is located next to silver because of mercury's high density some other metals may float on top of it for instance these steel boat even lead which is known for its high density floats on top of the liquid mercury like a wood bar usually mercury for laboratory use comes in rather big jars the hand of our laboratory weighting scales almost went off the scale because of such a high mass because this jar weighs more than 2 kilograms from a chemical point of view mercury strongly resembles silver it also doesn't oxidize well in the ear and has a high thermal and electrical conductivity besides mercury also has an incredibly high coefficient of surface tension which is why drops of this metal always take around shape this is exactly what makes this metal so treacherous because drops of this metal can easily roll into some narrow spaces and it will be extremely difficult to get them out of there because of having high density and having bad soaking properties this metal was used in the first barometers measuring atmospheric pressure and also in thermometers nowadays because of mercury's extreme toxicity and likelihood of shattering a mercury thermometer such devices are actively substituted with electronic ones that is why safety comes first however when reacting with certain other metals mercury behaves differently to how it behaves on the surface of glass for instance mercury soaks the surface of copper plated euro coins creating amalgam which is an alloy of copper and mercury thus in a short while you can turn a copper kind into a silver resembling one if you don't have a problem with the fact that it is played with a layer of pure semi-liquid mercury usually this method of creating an alley of copper and mercury is used to collect spilled mercury drops which easily stick the polished copper surfaces besides copper mercury can also be alloyed with other noble metals for instance with gold for my experiment i have purchased thin gold foil sheets when a drop of mercury is placed on a gold sheet it immediately begins reacting with mercury when metals are steered the reaction runs even faster and there forms an amalgam of gold and mercury depending on the ratio of metals this amalgam can be either in a liquid or in a solid state this way of dissolving gold has been used since the time of first gold diggers who'll dissolve pure gold powder in mercury drops after this reaction the alley of goat and mercury could easily be separated with the help of nitric acid because mercury dissolves well in nitric acid and gold deposits on the bottom besides reacting with noble metals for instance such as gold mercury can also be alloyed with regular aluminum if you wipe aluminum with hydrochloric acid in order to remove the oxide layer and then apply mercury the later will immediately begin penetrating the aluminium bar creating an amalgam of mercury and aluminium because of that aluminum will easily begin oxidizing in the air creating aluminium oxide which will be deposited on top of the bar in the form of such a fragile substance the leftover mercuric nitrate solution can be used for synthesizing an interesting compound which is mercury thiocyanate to do that i'm mixing the micro nitrate solution with several drops of 10 potassium type cyanide solution and as a result the reaction produces white mercury thai cyanide sediment after filtration and drying we get a seemingly unremarkable compound that is what it looks like until it is ignited when reacting with a burner flame mercuritized cyanide ignites and creates a monstrous spectacle mercury through cyanide has broken down into yellow carbon nitrate formed by carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide gases when i touch this substance it feels like formed plastic however you should not dispose of it because it is contaminated with wastages of metallic mercury that is why it should be disposed of a miracle containing chemical waste mercure oxide is one of such toxic chemicals for instance over time it slowly builds in old mercury barometers as a result of oxidation mercury in the ear however in 18th century few people know that mercury was toxic that is why in 1774 an english chemist joseph priestly decided to heat up this chemical and observe what will happen to it when being heated up mercury oxide began to break down into metallic mercury leaving drops of this metal on the taste tube walls and there was also released an unknown gas priestley decided to collect this obtained gas into another container and it turned out that this gas almost didn't dissolve in water the scientist decided to see what would happen if he allowed a smouldering rush light into the container filled with these gas and it ignited this is how oxygen was discovered which was released when mercury oxide was breaking down until the beginning of 21 century mercury was mainly used for making silver amalgam based dental fillings and in my next experiment i am going to show you how to make a real mercury sponge to do that first we need to alloy mercury with an active alkali metal such as sodium according to the reference data this reaction is supposed to release heat but i could even have imagined how intense the heat will be as a result of deciding heating of the mixture and high thermal conductivity of mercury the taste tube didn't withstand the temperature difference and cracked after collecting the content of the test tube i had to continue the experiment this time i lowered the stress tube into container filled with kerosene in order for it not to heat up so rapidly after successfully allowing mercury with sodium the obtained amalgam began to solidify at room temperature if we add this substance to the test tube filled with ammonia solution the alloy will only react with water because the solution is still missing ions but if we add hydrochloric acid to the solution there will form ammonium ions in it which will immediately begin reacting with sodium amalgam creating acute rare mercury and ammonia amalgam this compound is unstable and quickly breaks down forming wastages of mercury and creating such an unusual sponge if we add the obtained solution to the test tube with vestiges of sodium amalgam there will show up a real mercury monster from the test tube i don't know of any practical applications of this reaction but for example mercury and sodium amalgam is used in some organic synthesis reaction after running my experiments with mercury i decided to check if my laboratory was contaminated with accidentally spilled drops of mercury which is why i made a mercury vapor indicator to do that i took a sheet of watercolor paper and soaked it in five percent copper sulfide solution after that i sprayed it with 10 potassium iodide solution and there formed dark iodine spots and also white copper eyelid spots on the paper in order to improve the indicators i dissolve the dark iodide spots with ten percent sodium thai sulfide solution after that i rinse the paper sheets off with water when the paper sheets dry off i'll have ready to use mercury indicators which will become orange if there is mercury transition time will depend on the concentration of mercury in the laboratory but nowadays you can even purchase space special copper iodide based tests to test your room for mercury vapors in the end i decided to encase wastages of mercury in an ample for storage because even in a tightly sealed jar there may be still a leakage of this metals vapor so i think after viewing that video you will know more about this liquid metal and its properties and if you like this video don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel to see many more new and interesting and also i want to say thanks to the onyx mad company who provided me some reagents for this video i'll put a link to their site in the video description [Music] you

Channel: Thoisoi2 - Chemical Experiments!

Views: 181,817

Rating: 4.9283004 out of 5

Keywords: mercury, mercury properties, mercury chemistry, liquid metal, movable metal, video about mercury, metals, metals properties, mercury thermometer, mercury vapour, cinnabar, mercury oxide, mercury experiments, mercury synthesis, discoveries, chemistry experiments, experiments, chemical reaction, Thoisoi channel

Id: PFf0SBuzLMQ

Length: 13min 53sec (833 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 19 2020