How to neutralize mercury?

Mercury, despite the rarity of use in everyday life, can bring considerable problems to the house. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to neutralize and neutralize mercury in unforeseen situations. This article is the subject of our article.

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Mercury Use Areas

Mercury (Hg) is a fairly well-known element from the D.I. Mendeleev's periodic system. It has been used since ancient times for a wide variety of purposes:

1. Alchemists of the Middle Ages tried to extract gold with its help;
2. Doctors - cure many diseases. For this purpose, they prescribed mercury as a laxative, diuretic, and antiseptic.
3. She was present in ancient cosmetics and paints.
4. Mercury is also used in some industries, but ordinary citizens have little chance of being there.
5. A mercury thermometer is used everywhere in almost all hospitals, clinics, first-aid posts at schools and kindergartens. They are in our first-aid kits, although we give only electronic children’s hands.
   

Mercury left medicine only after the 70s of the 20th century. Now every child knows that she is dangerous. Nevertheless, we all may encounter a broken mercury thermometer or a fluorescent lamp. And only units whose professional activity is associated with chemical reagents know how to neutralize mercury. Why are these dangerous mercury thermometers still not out of use? The main reason remains their accuracy and low cost.

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Why is mercury dangerous? Mercury decontamination

How to deactivate mercury from a thermometer and why is it dangerous? This is a transition metal, which at room temperature is a heavy silver-white liquid. Thermometers usually contain no more than 2 grams of mercury. But its low content does not mean that the danger from it is just as small. Knowledge of how to neutralize mercury is necessary for the following reasons for its dangerous effects on the human body:

• The harm is not caused by the metal itself, but by its vapors, which are odorless, and we cannot sense their presence in the air.
• This first class toxin is a cumulative poison, which means it has the ability to accumulate in the body.
• Evaporating, mercury enters the lungs and is then carried by the blood stream to all organs, primarily destroying the nervous system.
• It is especially dangerous for pregnant women to breathe vapors of mercury, as these vapors block the nerve cells of the baby’s brain.
• Mercury quickly enters the body, but is excreted for a very long time.

Important! Two grams from a broken thermometer is enough to poison a healthy adult man. The concentration of vapors in the room at the same time exceeds the permissible norm by 20-30 times.

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How to neutralize mercury? - Demercurization Rules

If you inadvertently broke a thermometer, then you need to know how to neutralize mercury at home. First of all, do not panic and do rash acts. Your actions should be calm and clear.

Follow this procedure:

1. Take everyone out of the room and close the doors and windows. This is necessary so that the mercury balls do not spread through shoes or drafts throughout the apartment, and toxic fumes do not penetrate into other rooms.

Important! First of all, older people, children and pregnant women should leave the room.

2. You should prepare a jar of water, rubber gloves, a gauze bandage on your face, paper sheets, adhesive tape or electrical tape.
3. It is necessary to turn off the air conditioner, heater (if any), close the batteries (if the heating season) and remove other sources of heat. The higher the room temperature, the more intensively the mercury will evaporate.
4. Put a wet gauze bandage on your face and protective gloves on your hands.
   
5. Take a couple of sheets of paper and carefully sweep the balls of mercury onto one of them with a second sheet or hair brush. Do it in smooth movements, slowly, as they tend to crumble into small particles, which will subsequently be difficult to assemble. Then send mercury to a jar of water and tightly cover it with a lid. Water prevents vapors from rising.
6. Collect small particles of mercury using tape or tape. Tear off pieces of 5-10 cm, gently apply and gently lift. Fold in half and send to a jar of water.

Important! If there is no adhesive tape, then you can use a newspaper soaked in water and squeezed newspaper or filter paper. Just apply mercury to the balls and throw in a jar of water.

7. Shine a flashlight under the baseboard. If there are mercury residues there, you will have to remove the baseboard and collect the balls in the above ways.
8. Inspect with a flashlight all sorts of gaps close to the scene. You can try to get mercury from them with a medical syringe or a needle from a syringe, with a wet cotton wound around the tip.
9. After you have collected all the mercury, open the windows and ventilate the room for several hours so that toxic fumes disappear.

Important! In the next two weeks, try to carry out daily ventilation and wet cleaning indoors.

10. Treat surfaces that come in contact with the substance with a special solution to neutralize mercury:
11. For 1 liter of water, add 40 grams of grated laundry soap and 50 grams soda ash.

Important! Slots where balls of mercury could roll in can be filled with this solution.

12. You can also use a strong iodine solution to neutralize mercury.
13. Mix 100 g of vinegar with an aqueous solution of potassium permanganate (the color should be dark brown).

Important! Choose one of the solution options to neutralize mercury. They should not be used together, otherwise other toxic chemical compounds may result.

14. Be prepared for the fact that indelible spots may remain on the treated surfaces after demercurization.

Important! Ancient alchemists considered mercury to be a symbol of the planet Mercury, hence the term “demercurization”.

15. If mercury gets on the carpet, either cut out the contaminated area of ​​the carpet, or carefully roll it up and dispose of the whole (wrap it in plastic and take it to a landfill).

Important! The carpet should be folded from the edges to the place where the mercury was spilled.

16. It is necessary to wash the floor and other surfaces with soapy water, and then with clean water.

Important! If the thermometer crashed on a ceramic tile, it can be washed with bleach to neutralize mercury.

17. Fold the shoes, clothes, gloves, gauze bandage in which you cleaned the plastic bag and tie it tightly. All things that, one way or another, came into contact with mercury are not washable. They should be thrown without regret in a tight bag.
18. Call the Ministry of Emergencies or Sanitary Inspection. They will tell you what to do with the mercury you have collected. Usually they have a recycling center for such substances.
19. In extreme cases, take the mercury container away from the settlement and bury it in the ground. Over time, it all neutralizes and evaporates.
20. If there is a suspicion that you didn’t remove all the mercury, contact the above services to measure the concentration of mercury vapor in the room and help with demercurization.

Important! Typically, about 80% of mercury is collected mechanically.

21. Professionally, demercurization is carried out with special compounds that oxidize mercury and make it non-volatile: 20% solution of ferric chloride, 5% aqueous solution of dichloramine, a solution of potassium permanganate with hydrochloric acid, and others. There are even special kits for demercurization.
22. A person who was cleaning the room from mercury should drink plenty of fluids and drink a course of vitamins.

Important! If you suspect that the mercury spilled somewhere, but you do not know exactly how much it was and where exactly the balls of metal could roll, then do not take initiative and do not try to clean the place of mercury on your own. Do not risk your health - call the Ministry of Emergencies, sanitary and epidemiological surveillance, civil defense headquarters, or even the police. They know better than us than to neutralize mercury.

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What is strictly forbidden to do when neutralizing mercury at home?

• In no case should you collect mercury with a vacuum cleaner, no matter what modern model it may be. The mercury will be sprayed into the smallest particles inside the vacuum cleaner, and a hot engine will increase evaporation many times over.

Important! After this treatment, the vacuum cleaner will have to be thrown away.

• Do not use a broom either. He will not help to collect the balls, but only will crush and scatter them around the room.
• The collected mercury must not be drained into the sewer. It will settle in the pipes and will poison the air in your home for a long time.
• Do not dispose of collected mercury in the chute. The jar may break, and the mercury will not evaporate at the dump, as you expected, but at your entrance.
• Do not open windows before all mercury has been collected. Blows of wind or a draft will blow small balls of mercury all over the room, which will poison your life and damage your well-being for a long time.
• It is not recommended to turn on the air conditioner. In this case, mercury will settle on the filters.

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Signs of Mercury Poisoning

Acute poisoning can manifest itself in a couple of hours, because mercury quickly penetrates the body. Characteristic signs of acute poisoning and the need to neutralize mercury in your body are:

• general weakness;
• metallic taste in the mouth;
• nausea;
• vomiting
• diarrhea;
• profuse salivation;
• bleeding gums.
  

In severe cases, the following may appear:

• cough;
• dyspnea;
• increase in body temperature;
• deterioration in cardiac activity.

With a slight poisoning by mercury vapor, a person can feel:

• severe headache;
• general fatigue.

In case of chronic poisoning by mercury vapors (if mercury is inadvertently collected or a person constantly comes into contact with mercury, for example, at work), the well-being gradually worsens:

• frequent headache appears;
• apathy;
• irritability;
• insomnia;
• sensitivity of the skin, taste buds and smell decreases;
• over time, trembling of the eyelids, lips, hands and other signs of damage to the nervous system are added to this set.

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Help with mercury poisoning

 

1. In acute poisoning, you need to rinse the stomach with 20-30 g of activated charcoal.

Important! You can replace coal with water whipped with fresh chicken protein.

2. After this procedure, after 20 minutes, the victim should be given milk that neutralizes mercury and other toxins well.

Important! You can give boiled rice or oatmeal. They will also bind everything bad in the stomach.

3. Then you need to take a laxative in order to completely remove the remains of toxic substances from the body and give the victim complete rest.

Important! If the condition of a person who has been poisoned by mercury vapor is in doubt, it is better to hospitalize him. Doctors know how to deal with this problem. If the poisoning is mild, it is enough to be observed for some time in the clinic.

That's all the recommendations for such frequent and rather dangerous cases of human contact with mercury. And to completely avoid such a danger - get rid of mercury thermometers, especially if there are children in the house, because it is they who most often cause broken thermometers. Take them, for example, to the nearest hospital.Replace such devices with electronic ones, and you will sleep peacefully without fear that your child accidentally smashed this measuring device and swept evidence under the cabinet, fearing punishment.

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Stock footage

And if you do not agree to part with such an accurate mercury thermometer, then store it in an unbreakable container, in a place where children and pets will not reach.