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Mercury is used in thermometers, barometers, manometers, sphygmomanometers, float valves, mercury switches, mercury relays, fluorescent lamps and other devices, although concerns about the element's toxicity have led to the phasing out of such mercury-containing instruments. [11]
The tradition remains today with the name of the element mercury, where chemists decided the planetary name was preferable to common names like "quicksilver", and in a few archaic terms such as lunar caustic (silver nitrate) and saturnism (lead poisoning). [4] [5] Lead, corresponding with Saturn ♄ Tin, corresponding with Jupiter ♃ ()
A medical mercury-in-glass maximum thermometer showing the temperature of 38.7 °C (101.7 °F). One special kind of mercury-in-glass thermometer, called a maximum thermometer, works by having a constriction in the neck close to the bulb. As the temperature rises, the mercury is pushed up through the constriction by the force of expansion.
Gold and mercury were often used by alchemists (including Brahe) in medicines, and it was common for alchemists to link the Earth’s elements to properties in space and the human body. And there ...
Mercury compounds are reduced to elemental mercury simply by low-temperature heating (500 °C). Tin and iron occur as oxides and can be reduced with carbon monoxide (produced by, for example, burning charcoal) at 900 °C. Copper and lead compounds can be roasted to produce the oxides, which are then reduced with carbon monoxide at 900 °C.
Overexposure to mercury, mercury poisoning (mercurialism), was seen as an occupational disease to the ancient Romans. Though people in ancient South America often used cinnabar for art, or processed it into refined mercury (as a means to gild silver and gold to objects), the toxic properties of mercury were well known.
A 175-watt mercury-vapor light approximately 15 seconds after starting. A closeup of a 175-W mercury-vapor lamp. The small diagonal cylinder at the bottom of the arc tube is a resistor which supplies current to the starter electrode. A mercury-vapor lamp is a gas-discharge lamp that uses an electric arc through vaporized mercury to produce ...
formation of dangerous mercury-containing waste; high energy consumption [8] The technology has potentially disastrous environmental implications. A significant amount of mercury is required (24 million pounds were used in the U.S. between 1955 and 1963) and many opportunities for leaks into the environment exist.