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Topic: I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...  (Read 17670 times)

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zarr

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I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« on: July 22, 2005, 06:11:35 PM »
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
« Last Edit: July 22, 2005, 08:57:13 PM by Mitch »

Offline Borek

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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2005, 03:45:22 AM »
Probably dissolving gold or copper...
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Offline xiankai

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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2005, 10:12:25 AM »
do u intend to alter it physically or chemically?

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

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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2005, 11:34:16 AM »
I want to change it physically.
If you know how, please contact me at mp_c7@yahoo.com.


Offline jdurg

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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2005, 11:13:40 PM »
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'.
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Offline Eric

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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2005, 02:27:03 AM »
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...

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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2005, 04:14:49 AM »
brown orange colour? sounds like cinnabar, HgS.
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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #7 on: July 27, 2005, 04:41:42 AM »
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 :) ?
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Offline jdurg

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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #8 on: July 27, 2005, 08:59:22 AM »
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.
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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #9 on: July 27, 2005, 08:22:35 PM »
Could be, i think it was relative to phase changing though. liquid gas.  maybe gas is orange brown?

Linkiroth

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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #10 on: July 29, 2005, 10:45:39 AM »
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.

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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #11 on: July 29, 2005, 04:02:44 PM »
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.
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Linkiroth

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Re:I wonder if it's possible to color the mercury...
« Reply #12 on: July 29, 2005, 09:39:24 PM »
Perhaps diffusing something with a lower electronegativity into it? Or mayhaps mixing an aqueous solution of copper?

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