[limpet chicken]

I attempted to prepare some mercury (I) iodide earlier on a small scale, by adding mercury metal to a test tube, about 3g or so, added some ACS grade resublimed I2, and after capping the tube with the end of the vial of Hg, heated from below with an ordinary lighter.

First sign of activity was I2 vapor turning the atmosphere inside the test tube violet, then for some reason, it almost exploded, nonviolently, but yellow and red mercury iodides SHOT up over the walls of the tube, nescessitating the scraping off the glass of the HgI, along with excess Hg, and the addition of fresh I2.

The formed iodide wasn't completely free of elemental Hg, even after several additions of I2, so I gave it a water wash and left it in an evapping dish to seperate, I believe I have a mixture of two iodides though, probably mercuric and mercurous, as there are traces of lemon yellow, in there, but the vast majority is a cinnabar-pink color.

How should I get the rest of the I2 to combine, I suppose I could resublime the I2, and use it in the form of a dust, mixed intimately with the mercury remaining, but that, is a royal pain in the rear to do, any better ideas?

[FeLiXe]

My guess is that you have all HgI₂. This goes in two different modifications: metastable molecular yellow, and stable ionic red

when you heat it up you get gaseous HgI₂ molecules. when they cool down fast the modification remains and it stays yellow. Try heating up the red HgI₂ and you'll see that it becomes yellow. If you scratch the yellow stuff a little bit it's red again.

[Quaff]

sorry to hear about that.  mercury is highly volatile and when inhaled goes directly to nerve tissue and brain.  Its half life in brain has been estimated at over 20 years.  Its a potent demyelinator and for that reason I never work with mercury.  Here is a good video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ylnQ-T7oiA

Hopefully you conducted your work in a fume hood.  I seem to recall a correlation between mercury exposure and cancers, and thyroid inhibition.  I think the mechanism is by binding to the selenium out of a person's glutathione peroxidase.   Mercury is nasty and especially since it looks so cool.  I wish more people appreciated just how toxic it really is.

[Borek]

Here is a good video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ylnQ-T7oiA

Not neglecting mercury toxicity, somehow I doubt the video - seems to me like with this speed of vaporization filling will be a history after few months, yet they survive intact for many years.

[Quaff]

Doubting is good sometimes.  In this case, for me and many MD's and PhD's at least, the evidence is overwhelming that mercury does in fact continue to vaporize out of dental amalgams, even those that are 25 years old.

It is a simple test to obtain old amalgam from a local dentist and put it under a uv light and see for onesself.   People with amalgam fillings constantly inhale tiny amounts of mercury, which is why mercury is banned in many countries in fillings.  One can readily calculate from the average amount of mercury in an amalgam filling, the volume of water such an amount would render over the EPA polluted limit.

But don't take my word for it, there are mountains of published work in this area.


http://www.iaomt.org/    is a good place to begin for those interested.

[Quaff]

Doubting is good sometimes.  In this case, for me and many MD's and PhD's at least, the evidence is overwhelming that mercury does in fact continue to vaporize out of dental amalgams, even those that are 25 years old.

It is a simple test to obtain old amalgam from a local dentist and put it under a uv light and see for onesself.   People with amalgam fillings constantly inhale tiny amounts of mercury, which is why mercury is banned in many countries in fillings.  One can readily calculate from the average amount of mercury in an amalgam filling, the volume of water such an amount would render over the EPA polluted limit.

But don't take my word for it, there are mountains of published work in this area.


http://www.iaomt.org/    is a good place to begin for those interested.


"Vimy and Lorscheider derived an average absorbed mercury dose of 10 μg per day from
amalgam fillings from their measurements of mouth air. "   Vimy, MJ; Lorscheider, FL.  Serial measurements of intra-oral air mercury: estimation of daily dose from
dental amalgam.  J Dent Res, 64:1072-1075, (1985).

http://www.iaomt.org/articles/files/files193/The%20Case%20Against%20Amalgam.pdf

10 micrograms per day, over a year is 3.65 mg annual mercury intake.

NO thanks !!

[Borek]

It is a simple test to obtain old amalgam from a local dentist and put it under a uv light and see for onesself.

Have you done it by yourself, or are you basing your knowledge on one youtube video, which shows something smoking?

Yes, I know mercury is poisonous, yes I know it has been banned from the fillings. No, I don't believe in this video.

[Quaff]

Yes, and you can too.   Put a pool of mercury under a uv light and look at it.    I did it years ago.

10 micrograms per day is evolved from a single average-sized filling.  That stuff demyelinates one's brain:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU8nSn5Ezd8

Mercury is unique in this effect.

[Borek]

Yes, and you can too.   Put a pool of mercury under a uv light and look at it.

Pool of mercury is not an amalgamate filling, mercury vapor pressure over both differs by orders of magnitude.

[Quaff]

I suspect the authors of the study below containing this text:

"It was concluded that Hg originating from maternal amalgam tooth fillings transfers across the placenta to the fetus, across the mammary gland into milk ingested by the newborn, and ultimately into neonatal body tissues."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9164660

would be more qualified to comment further on the relevance of your statement on this subject than I.

[Borek]

All I have stated is I doubt the video shows the real footage of mercury running from the amalgam. I have never stated mercury doesn't run from the amalgam, I have never stated mercury is not poisonus, I have never stated it should be not banned. Yet you post more and more to prove your point, point that I have never denied.

[Quaff]

Its all good Borek, all I wrote was an admission that I'm not the one you want to discuss this with if you're interested in learning more.    There are others better qualified than I.

You had earlier asked whether I was relying on one video, and I think I answered your question, yet you then changed the subject to amalgam not being pure mercury, just like plumb pudding isn't pure pudding.  But any kid knows that, so I though it good to point out that its irrelevant to the effect that mercury gets into the body from dental amalgams.   Plain and simple.   I say mercury is bad.    Are you arguing that its not ??

Since you seem to desire to argue with me, when all I did was point out that mercury is bad,  I'll go one further and point out that your statements are incomplete in the regard that you've also neglected to consider the thermoelectric currents, as well as galvanic ones caused by amalgam fillings, and that these occur at the base of the brain and indeed have an effect on a person.    I write from experience and having stood on the shoulders of giants, but really don't give a rats behind if any anonymous people on the internet believe anything of what I write - in general people are pretty numb these days (from all that mercury and fluoride) compared to back in my generation.

I don't see anything to argue about between you and I about these long-settled issues.   

Mercury is bad, and amalgams are a source of mercury, in addition to the original poster having a tube of it go off in his presence.    What part of mercury being bad do you not understand ??

[Borek]

You are trying hard to not understand what I am saying.

What I said was: "this video in my opinion doesn't show mercury evaporating from amalgam filling. Have you tried to do it by yourself?"

You say: "yes, I did it using a pool of mercury."

Obviously at this stage you assumed that experiment done using a pool of mercury is identical with experment done using amalgam filling. It is not. They behave differently, and using pool of mercury in an experiment is not the same as using amalgam. It was not me who have changed the subject from mercury to amalgam, it was you who have changed subject from amalgam to mercury.

Mercury is bad, and amalgams are a source of mercury, in addition to the original poster having a tube of it go off in his presence.    What part of mercury being bad do you not understand ??

Show me in which post I wrote mercury is not bad or I am going to lock the topic. This is a classic straw man argument - you are repeating that mercury is bad and that I am denying it, while I have never stated anything similar.

[Quaff]

"Obviously at this stage you assumed that experiment done using a pool of mercury is identical with experment done using amalgam filling. It is not."

No I didn't.   I didn't assume anything, you've only assumed I did.   If y ou look back, you'll see that you asked whether I was relying on one video, and I replied that I wasn't relying on a single video, but had rather seen it myself.   

25 year old amalgams do in fact emit mercury vapor, whether you're comfortable with that or not, it is a fact that is readily verifiable.

I never wrote that I consider pure mercury as being the same as amalgam.   In fact, my last message discussing galvanic and thermoelectric effects of dental amalgams is a tacit showing that I have considered this in much more depth than you.   From the tone of your confrontational non-contributory messages, I have no further desire to communicate with you !

[Quaff]

"or I am going to lock the topic."

That kind of threat only shows that you're a wuss who can't stand losing an argument, that you yourself un-necessarily provoked.