Mercury Test
I accomplished a number of small tasks this weekend – working on a plate polishing holder, charging up an iodine box – but the little exercise I thought I would post on was the test I did for mercury fumes. I wanted to test the new Mercury Indicator Powder I got from Lab Safety Supply. A while ago a dear friend gave me some mercury in support of my dagurreian passion. It was an item he had picked up out of curiosity many years ago as a young man and had carted around with him from place to place. I don’t know how he had it stored when he had it, but it came to me in a polyethylene eye wash bottle sealed inside a gasketed Army surplus ammo can. I was curious to discover if polyethylene is mercury vapor proof.
I put some of the indicator powder in a plastic jar lid and closed it in the ammo can. For a control I put a second measure of the indicator it in a duplicate jar lid and left it in the fume hood. The test setup was carried out with the fume hood running, and with me gloved and wearing a full face gas mask with appropriate cartridge. Well to cut to the chase – the indicator powder passed and the polyethylene likely failed. The powder turns brown when exposed to mercury fumes. Although I can’t absolutely rule out mercury contamination inside the ammo can, there are no visible mercury droplets of any size to be seen. Whatever. The reality is that the ammo can has mercury vapor in it and the point is brought home to me (again) that you have to be darn careful with poisons you can’t see. I already knew that a lot of plastics are permeable to varying degrees, but I think many people would have looked at this setup as a safe way to store mercury. It’s not. Here are a few pictures.
I would encourage anyone looking to use the process to try some of this indicator powder. It is cheaper than many of the more sophisticated ways to detect Hg vapor, and it has a long shelf life. It is possible to make it yourself, but the chemicals involved are fairly expensive bought in small quantity from a retail supplier. It is cheaper to buy from LSS unless you feel like making a very large quantity.
In any case – for now the ammo can is hanging out doors in a closed bucket. I will be ordering a proper bottle – the kind that comes packed in a can with a vermiculite filling. I would also welcome other storage ideas from the more experienced.
Be careful out there.
Daguerreotype Process | andy | March 9, 2009
Yay more castle daguerre eye candy! Did I send you some mercury too Andy? maybe i sent it to jon, but the plastic bottle was designed to cary mercury, I’d like to see how it feared…
Hi Alan – yes, you did send me some mercury which is still sitting safely in my ventilated outdoor storage area. I do plan to test it at some point too. I have to be careful in that I am rather easily distractable and don’t want to lose sight of the fact that I am doing all this stuff so I can become an accomplished daguerreian artist, not a great daguerreian technician. :) I don’t want to spend all my time perfecting the process, and never actually create any images.
Still, I am concerned that we develop an easily accessible, public body of knowledge about the safety aspects of the daguerreian method. I think laws controlling “home use” of toxics are only going to get stricter, so we need to be sure that people exploring the art are quite clear about what is involved in staying safe and being environmentally responsible. I hope that the more experienced artists will share what they know as well.
Interesting post, Andy. I would have stored the Hg in an amber glass bottle and not thought any more about it. I’m glad that you found something to test with.
Can you share some details about your mask and cartridge?
Jon
Excellent work Andy! I’d be curious to see what mercury storage you end up working with. My mercury is currently off in Philly but I’m sure I’ll end up with more.
Another question little off topic, what are you using to store your iodine? The little amber bottle mine came in doesn’t really keep all the fumes at bay…
the other Jon
Speaking of off topic, last night I had a dream that the four of us were literally standing in front of this page – the sea was moving in the back round and the text was hovering in front of us. I think this means that my mercury handling is not what it should be and my grey matter is becoming affected…
Hi Guys-
Sorry about the slow answer. I have been trapped at work. We rolled out a virtual world earthqake preparedness trainer for management today. The demo went well, but absorbed entirely too much time. I will answer you in order received.
Jonathan – as you probably already know glass works great for Hg as long as it doesn’t break. I am still looking into caps though since those come in a variety of materials. That’s why glass chemical bottles are often packed in a steel can with a vermiculite filler – to ward off breakage.
My mask is an older MSA Ultra-twin full face mask with an MSA Mersorb P-100 815185 cartridge set. I really only use the mask as a final line of defense – none of them last very long with mercury vapor present. You really need to work to release an absolute minimum and exhaust it completely with the fume hood.
Jon – My iodine is a problem too. The phenolic top on my brown glass bottle leaks too. I am currently sealing the top with some of my J-Lar tape and replacing it now and again. When I find a better solution I will post about it.
Commercial mercury shipping is done in steel containers with steel lids. They hold about three liters. I have an inquiry into a company about smaller containers but I don’t know if they will answer me yet. I only sent it this morning.
Alan – turn up the fume hood :) or see me later. I am a licensed psychotherapist and years ago did a fair amount of Jungian based dream interpretation. The good news is that it is a great dream…
I will try to add some pictures of my mask in a few minutes.
http://www.thedaguerreotypist.com/tdg1/wordpress/gallery/?file=Mask%2F
Cheers
p.s. Here is a link to all the MSA masks and cartridges. It is a big PDF wall chart.
http://media.msanet.com/NA/USA/LawEnforce/CartridgeChart/1000-37_42CFR_WallChart.pdf
Hey Andy
here’s the pdf for the shoulderless plastic container that I sent the mercury to you in. It says it is “ideal” for mercury storage.
http://www.scichem.com/netalogue/pdfs/ind117.pdf
I also got a mercury spill collector:
http://www.scichem.com/netalogue/pdfs/ind596.pdf
That bottle catalog cut is really interesting. I have never seen any product claimed as “ideal” for mercury. I will definitely test the one you sent me next.
The guy at the chemical supply I went to yesterday says that all his mecury comes in HDPE bottles (High Density Polyethylene)