Extracting mercury from contaminated water

Over the years, I have collected a whole bunch of water based mercury waste. In this video, I will be recovering the mercury and disposing of the water.

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[AlphasysNl]

Waste disposal and management is an often forgotten and obscured part. People love to see reactions and might think to do these things themselves, without thinking about the disposal process. This video is invaluable, since it shows it's not all fun and games.

[MegaChamous]

Am I the only one who barely understands these videos but find them very interesting?

[ethelana]

That 5000ml beaker is an absolute unit

[theCodyReeder]

I usually just add a wad of bare copper wire to my waste mercury jug and get pure mercury metal in one step, But I have always wanted to see this method. Any chance you can convert it to the red mercury sulfide? I haven't figured out how to do it yet.

[ZepLedastic]

This is amazing - finally a channel that has modern, accessible, sciency high-quality videos on waste treatment. Great idea for a series, my chem department is going to love this!

[wrmblood]

Just noticed you have "NileRed" printed on some of your beakers.

Pretty legit.

[hairyfro]

I think if I ever had to do this much work to clean up back in grad school I would have just quit. Kudos to you for doing the responsible thing and cleaning this up properly. Such a mess....

[jakewaitze]

The way the filter paper floated to the bottom of your makeshift filter was rather gratifying.

[aepceo]

Waste recycling videos are really useful for lab techs such as myself. I know my college lab would love to see them continue!

[xMacieX]

First chemistry lab at university was like this per experiment: 5-10min getting the stuff you need, 10-15min the actual experiment, 30min-2h waste management.

[YallSuckLMAO]

9:19
Ok did anyone else find that the filter paper just falling so perfectly to be satisfying?? Or just me...?

[TheGayestPersononYouTube]

2:55
Dirty Mercury is also the name of my sexually explicit Queen cover band.

[Volvith]

NileRed: Complicated filtration cycles.
Me: FUNNY COLOURS!!! YAAAY!!! Do more funny colours! :D

[irvingkurlinski]

Very practical use of chemistry and educational from several standpoints. Thanks for your posting. After thought: If you sandwich the diatomaceous earth between two sheets of "fast" filter paper it is easier to deal with.

[AwesometownUSA]

Dirty Mercury??
Dang. Well, now that I got the name, I better go recruit some bandmates!

[vgofron]

Great video, as always. I have suggestion for future synthesis - the Crystal violet dye, also known as gentian violet. It can be used for staining biological samples (like Eosin), it has some antibacterial effects and it can be used as pH indicator. In strongly acidic solutions, the color of the dye changes from violet to green and to yellow. In basic solutions, it decomposes and becomes colorless.

[brewer]

When filtering with DE (Diatomaceous Earth) you can continue to add small amounts of DE while you are filtering to keep the filter surface from being blinded. This keeps the filter process from slowing down.

[themightyswanson]

"My PH Paper is pretty crappy", Proceeds to use it for the next 4 years.

[skyhawk]

i suggested videos like this a little while ago, so happy you are doing it. it show's an interesting side to chemistry that doesn't get covered much

[ZachHughes]

I really enjoyed this video. It gives another angle to chemistry that not many YouTube's take advantage of. Great work!