If you go search the EPA site, they have how to handle metallic mercury spills, like breaking a mercury thermometer, or florescent light. The elemental sulfur is a good top, I had not heard of that method.
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/ - what to do if you break a florescent bulb, CFL, or mercury thermometer, etc. Bulk mercury (think mercury barometer that would have several pounds of mercury in it) might need something different. http://www.epa.gov/mercury/ - their general site on mercury, both good and overkill information, IMHO. I know their tree-hugger hearts are in the right place, but it might be a bit much for much of the real world. If you really want to make your own x-ray machine, it was published in the Scientific American in the Amateur Scientist column, years ago. Go to the library and find (I had to get it via inter-library loan), a book, "The Scientific American Book of Projects for the Amateur Scientist", edited by C.L.Stong. The one I had years ago was before ISBN numbers were assigned. I had it in the late 1960's. They have several experiments that I am sure are currently labeled 'Don't do this at home'. I did the cloud chamber (with a small radium paint alpha source I got from the Atomic Energy Commission for asking), a NMR that would detect Flourine (not sensitive enough for much else, but it really worked), and a low velocity wind tunnel and instrumentation. I have thought of making my own seismic event recorder (my wife is a geophysicist by training). In all those things, I did go and purchase a 5 lb flask (about an ounce or two) for my younger brother (who was about 10 at the time). We played with it and made things. Given we were no evaporating it or ingesting it, we were pretty careful with it. I think we took it to the local high school for them to add to their chem lab after a few years of playing with it. When I was in high-school, I remember 'cleaning' the metallic mercury chemically in the high school chem lab (under the watchful eye of the chemistry teacher - who had a masters as was working on his PhD at the time). It came out with much less oxidation. I think I remember when working out the formulas for the reactions we actually returned the oxidized mercury back to metallic rather than just separating it for disposal. ... ahh memories. Sorry for the wandering thoughts. ><> ... Jack Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart... Colossians 3:23 On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 10:17 AM, dave <dengv...@charter.net> wrote: > On Sat, 2010-03-13 at 06:29 -0500, Mark Wendt (Contractor) wrote: >> At 01:37 PM 3/12/2010, you wrote: >> >Mark Wendt (Contractor) wrote: >> > > >> > > Heh, and you're complaining that an x-ray inspection system is one of >> > > those "can't do at home" kinda thingies... >> > > >> >If you stick your hand past all the guards and manage to not tease the >> >door sensors, it could mash your hand, that's about the worst it could do. >> >An X-ray machine could be really dangerous to others, even at a good >> >distance, if not properly shielded. I think that makes quite a >> >difference, especially to federal regulatory agencies. >> > >> >Of course, I have a modified toaster oven for relowing the solder on >> >boards, a whole darkroom with laser photoplotter to make master artwork >> >which I now use to photo-etch solder stencils. And that's another >> >thing, ****SOLDER****! Yikes, having (Gasp) lead-bearing solder in your >> >home, to hear some people talk you'd think it would turn your house into >> >a superfund cleanup site. >> > >> >Jon >> >> Reminds me of how we used to play with mercury in science class in >> school. Now, if you happen to accidentally break one of those CFL >> bulbs in your home, you're supposed to call the hazmat crew... >> >> Mark > > Elemental Hg isn't really very toxic at least compared to the > organo-mercurials. If any of this stuff was as dangerous as some people > would have us think we'd all be long gone. > > Benzene, toluene, methylene chloride, chloroform, trichloroethylene, > asbestos, perchloric acid and a host of others were all part of my daily > life. If you can smell benzene or toluene you are over the 8 hr limit. > > The easy way to clean up mercury is to sprinkle elemental sulfur over > the spill just like you would absorbent on an oil spill. Maybe rub it a > bit to mix and wait a decent amount of time. Then sweep up and maybe > finish with vacuum. > > Dave >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval >> Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs >> proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. >> See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. >> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev >> _______________________________________________ >> Emc-users mailing list >> Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval > Try the new software tools for yourself. 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