On May 22, 2017, at 9:38 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk <[email protected]>
wrote:
> ...I'm not sure if "mercury" batteries contain metallic mercury or mercury
> salts. Metallic mercury is actually pretty much harmless, even though
> bringing a thermometer into a US school can cause a major panic. Mercury
> salts are a different matter. Mercury vapor should also be avoided, at least
> in significant quantities and long term exposure, as my father found out as a
> university student in chemistry.
To emphasize what Paul says, Mercury considered only as an element has
a *very* wide range of toxicity. It depends entirely on the compounds it is
bound into. (Similar to, say, Carbon and Nitrogen….).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn
http://i.imgur.com/0dXdc.jpg
Karen Wetterhahn spilled a drop of a Mercury compound on her latex
glove, and died of it 10 months later.
I don’t know what happened to the guy who is pictured sitting in (on) a pool of
Mercury, but at least it’s clear that at the time, he considered elemental
mercury not to be lethally dangerous. I remember seeing the photo in National
Geographic, and the caption did say he was very careful to shake out his cuffs,
etc after the photo was shot.
NatGeo itself also is now clearly aware there is some risk:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160524-indonesia-toxic-toll/
One problem is that it’s hard to ensure that *all* of the Mercury will
stay in the non-toxic forms when handling it.
- Mark
