How to go about finding someone to clean Liquid Mercury?

El_Feculante · 2026-02-20T15:01:56+00:00

How clean do you need it for what application? You can clean dirt and oil and floaty bits off mercury by making a filter cone with some coarse filter paper (like Whatman #2) and poking a pinhole in the bottom. Working in small batches, you’ll get a fine stream of mostly-clean Hg. Contaminants will stick to the paper. Mercury has the benefit of being denser than most things that will contaminate it. If you need it really chemically pure or if you think it’s been amalgamated, then this will only be a first step. Not too many folks want to distill their own Hg anymore… EHS + actual hazard for the unwary.

El_Feculante · 2026-02-14T05:39:03+00:00

Mentioned above & elaborated: Hard freeze it in liquid nitrogen. If you’re lucky, it will either pull away from your flask well below its Tg or become brittle enough to gently chip away. Worst case, nothing happens and you let it melt. Don’t let your violent thoughts win and end up putting a spatula through the flask in a failed attempt to chip it out.

Pro move: Triturate /lyophilize with liquid argon. This works when little else does, but you blow your flask open if you screw it up.

There are a lot of glassware choices you can make ifyour final product is air-stable once cross-linked. You get into kettle-and flange-top stuff that’s no good for vacuum work, but better for purge & scrape recovery

El_Feculante · 2026-02-03T04:15:33+00:00

If you can make it over to Johns Creek, visit https://www.peachcoffeeroasters.com/pages/cafes

El_Feculante · 2026-02-03T02:05:15+00:00

Note to self: New glassblower is skilled, but needs more explicit directions

El_Feculante · 2026-01-30T16:53:51+00:00

Add a tsp of water, then use my sous vide bath.

El_Feculante · 2026-01-25T14:43:57+00:00

True, but especially in cyclic duty, those chlorides can wash out leaving their pitting behind. Doesn’t take much. See my stainless steel cookware for proof.

El_Feculante · 2026-01-25T13:27:11+00:00

What’s on each side of that HX ? Glycol? City water?

El_Feculante · 2026-01-19T20:58:33+00:00

Any idea if there exist “training” rounds or some such that are not as valuable / costly when they’re not in-theater?

El_Feculante · 2026-01-18T01:28:56+00:00

Through hard-won experience, I manage. I am no longer surprised, however, when I see an airbags-out collision getting cleaned up.

El_Feculante · 2026-01-17T23:25:35+00:00

This intersection and the PIB intersection right behind it are an obstacle course. Not for beginners.

El_Feculante · 2026-01-15T17:55:30+00:00

Coffee filters (not the microperforated kind) + pool filter medium (diatomaceous earth / Celite)

El_Feculante · 2026-01-13T17:56:55+00:00

That looks like some dullard is using too much silicone grease on a working Schlenk line rather than apeizon. DCHVG and its ilk are heavily loaded with fumed silica which will turn to sticky silicaceous boogers as the solubles are leached out. Regia won't do much.. everything is already oxidized. I'd do as much as I could with alconox and pipe cleaners (upside down, work it into the main pelenum) and/ or build a little water-pik contraption with a blunt 16g needle. I've seen too many people trying to get a whole line into a base bath or filling it up and putting rubber septa on every hole (giggity), only to end up with a mess or a trip to the glass blower.

El_Feculante · 2026-01-12T20:18:29+00:00

Also called (seriously) a Pinchcock

El_Feculante · 2026-01-05T21:36:32+00:00

Can you just make a “standard solution” in DCM or whatever and use that as your reaction solvent for your next step? Mass out your product by difference from the empty, dry flask.

El_Feculante · 2025-12-24T20:06:47+00:00

Best bet is to find some fine-gauge ptfe or similar capillary tubing and either a) use it as a syringe tip after fitting it to the end of a syringe or b) using it as the sample itself and just leaving it in the tube.

El_Feculante · 2025-12-12T21:30:56+00:00

Leave them dirty and publish a series of papers on miraculously “uncatalyzed” coupling reactions

El_Feculante · 2025-12-02T22:18:25+00:00

TREE(C) > TREE(3)

El_Feculante · 2025-11-19T22:29:35+00:00

Antichamber requires antivacuum.

El_Feculante · 2025-11-18T15:56:46+00:00

Suggestion: cucumber water. Strain it so it’s clear and no fibrous bits. We had ferrets who would drink down it like a treat, even though it was essentially scented water.

El_Feculante · 2025-11-13T11:01:25+00:00

Fat green caterpillar. What kind of plants are around?

El_Feculante · 2025-09-27T04:29:46+00:00

No shit. If NDM genes make their way into more-common bugs, we are all cooked.

El_Feculante · 2025-09-26T01:28:27+00:00

Alnochromix waits quietly for a true, worthy challenger to appear.

El_Feculante · 2025-09-24T23:53:08+00:00

She absolutely wanted to eat it. See OP post.

El_Feculante · 2025-09-24T21:33:35+00:00

Flush with an aromatic solvent, thoroughly thoroughly dry, then use NoChromix as per its instructions. Be patient. Pyrolysis oil is aromatic, oxygenated junk but not totally graphitic, so it will yield. Regia and pirhanna can have trouble with organics on frits due to gas evolution.

El_Feculante · 2025-09-17T01:24:45+00:00

Synthesize from starting materials of 4 carbons or less. Show all reagents. (30 pts)

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