Getting hold of mercury for production of mercury nitrate can be difficult. Mercury thermometers are not sold anymore in many parts of the world, but mercury can be available from other sources.
If one doesn't need too much mercury, it's still readily available in mercury tilt switches sold on Ebay, cheap and available. Just search for "Mercury tilt switch". See the below tutorial for instruction on how to empty them, even though it really should be self-explanatory.
Also, the switches in the tut are really large. Probably you'll get your hands on a 100 or a couple of 100's of small 5 mm switches, with just a fraction of a gram of mercury inside. Just crush them up in a beaker (use gloves, goddam it!) and filter away the glass afterwards. Always always work in a plastic container to avoid uncontrollable mercury spills. Trust me, those are a real bitch!
You can also opt to distill your mercury to clean it up, video tutorial on this is also posted below. The boiling point of mercury is a good bit above 300C though, so you'll need a setup with vacuum to do it, to lower the boiling point to a more convenient temperature.
Now, if you need larger amounts of mercury, extraction of mercury from the mineral cinnabar is a viable method.
Cinnabar is a red mercury-containing mineral that can be bought online for reasonable prices. It's normally used as a colour pigment in traditional paints, so it's sold as art material in powder form, which is excellent for extracting mercury. and wont raise any suspicious eyebrows when ordered.
You will also need sodium hydroxide, sulphur and aluminum powder. Aluminum metal in flakes or foil can also be used, but you run the risk of a very slow reaction if you dont use aluminum powder. On the other hand, you should be very careful when adding aluminium powder, since the reaction can be quite violent.
Oh, and aluminum powder is also easily available from ebay or amazon as pyrotechnic supplies. The mesh quality called "german dark" is a really finely powdered aluminum and can produce a too violent reaction, beware.
The reaction goes as follows: a solution of sodium hydroxide in water is mixed with sulphur to create a polysulphuric mix. This is then mixed with cinnabar, which makes the mercury in the cinnabar produce sodium dithiomercurate, which is water soluble. This is then reacted with aluminum and the sodium hydroxide to produce pure mercury metal through reduction.
Its important to use an excess of sodium hydroxide to drive the reaction forward towards mercury metal.
Two instructional videos are listed below. The NileRed video is not really about cinnabar but about BLACK mercury sulfide, but its the same compound as what is present in red cinnabar.
If one doesn't need too much mercury, it's still readily available in mercury tilt switches sold on Ebay, cheap and available. Just search for "Mercury tilt switch". See the below tutorial for instruction on how to empty them, even though it really should be self-explanatory.
Also, the switches in the tut are really large. Probably you'll get your hands on a 100 or a couple of 100's of small 5 mm switches, with just a fraction of a gram of mercury inside. Just crush them up in a beaker (use gloves, goddam it!) and filter away the glass afterwards. Always always work in a plastic container to avoid uncontrollable mercury spills. Trust me, those are a real bitch!
You can also opt to distill your mercury to clean it up, video tutorial on this is also posted below. The boiling point of mercury is a good bit above 300C though, so you'll need a setup with vacuum to do it, to lower the boiling point to a more convenient temperature.
Now, if you need larger amounts of mercury, extraction of mercury from the mineral cinnabar is a viable method.
Cinnabar is a red mercury-containing mineral that can be bought online for reasonable prices. It's normally used as a colour pigment in traditional paints, so it's sold as art material in powder form, which is excellent for extracting mercury. and wont raise any suspicious eyebrows when ordered.
You will also need sodium hydroxide, sulphur and aluminum powder. Aluminum metal in flakes or foil can also be used, but you run the risk of a very slow reaction if you dont use aluminum powder. On the other hand, you should be very careful when adding aluminium powder, since the reaction can be quite violent.
Oh, and aluminum powder is also easily available from ebay or amazon as pyrotechnic supplies. The mesh quality called "german dark" is a really finely powdered aluminum and can produce a too violent reaction, beware.
The reaction goes as follows: a solution of sodium hydroxide in water is mixed with sulphur to create a polysulphuric mix. This is then mixed with cinnabar, which makes the mercury in the cinnabar produce sodium dithiomercurate, which is water soluble. This is then reacted with aluminum and the sodium hydroxide to produce pure mercury metal through reduction.
Its important to use an excess of sodium hydroxide to drive the reaction forward towards mercury metal.
Two instructional videos are listed below. The NileRed video is not really about cinnabar but about BLACK mercury sulfide, but its the same compound as what is present in red cinnabar.
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