[zarr]

Hi,

I'm a beginner in chemistry and I have a question for you, guys.
I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...

Thanks

[Borek]

Probably dissolving gold or copper...

[xiankai]

do u intend to alter it physically or chemically?

as mecury is a transition metal, its' compounds have various colours.

[zarr]

I want to change it physically.
If you know how, please contact me at mp_c7@yahoo.com.

[jdurg]

Probably dissolving gold or copper...

Unfortuneately, if you add enough gold or copper to the mercury to change its color, it will form a solid amalgam instead of the liquid one, so the mercury really would not longer be 'mercury-ish'.

[Eric]

If you add a chemical to mercury to change its color, then it is not changing the color of the mercury, you make a compound or solution that would not be deemed mercury.  milk does not equal chocolate milk.  perhaps treating it electrically, making it either gain or lose an electron would make it change color.  i think i have seen it as a brown-orange color somewhere...

[xiankai]

brown orange colour? sounds like cinnabar, HgS.

[Borek]

Unfortuneately, if you add enough gold or copper to the mercury to change its color, it will form a solid amalgam instead of the liquid one, so the mercury really would not longer be 'mercury-ish'.

Sounds very probably. Is it a guess, or knowledge ?

[jdurg]

A little bit of both.  Heh.  Most amalgams that I know of are solids,  Very few remain liquid at room temperature.  You could alway use cesium in place of mercury.  Cs is a nice gold color.  Problem is, if you thermometer breaks you'll have a little fire and caustic CsOH thrown about the place.

[Eric]

Could be, i think it was relative to phase changing though. liquid gas.  maybe gas is orange brown?

[Linkiroth]

Possible to make the metal Mercury colored? Yes.
Possible for it to remain the element Hg? No.

I believe that if you dissolved a small amount of another metal into it (e.g.: copper) that you could, in fact, color it. However, if this were possible, for it to remain a liquid metal, it would not be Hg, but a compound of sorts... however, I could be wrong.

[jdurg]

Even the addition of copper won't change the color.  Take a look at all the pennies people have dipped into mercury throughout time.  These pennies come out of the mercury with a silvery shine to them.  This is from the mercury forming an amalgam with the copper metal on the outside of the penny.  The overall result is a gray-silver colored solid, not a reddish colored liquid.

[Linkiroth]

Perhaps diffusing something with a lower electronegativity into it? Or mayhaps mixing an aqueous solution of copper?