Just Ordered Some Gallium

[N8XE]

[QUOTE=n2ize;633452]Yes. I also recall reading that some early telescopes actually used shiny pools of mercury as reflecting mirrors.[quote]

Yup, they still do. The obvious disadvantage is they can only be pointed straight up which is fine for some applications.

I guess I will. I bought it strictly as a novelty. You know, one of those items I have absolutely no practical use for but I still have gotta have it.

Sometimes having fun has no practical value or use. Some consider that the most valuable of all. Just don't make a spoon out of it :)

Jason N8XE

[n2ize]

My father had a pretty large amount of mercury that he had collected over time. He kept it in a very strong glass container - a normal bottle wouldn't work because the weight of the falling mercury when you tipped the container would break a regular jar. In fact, that's how we collected the mercury. Dad had a whole bunch of old mercury vapor rectifier tubes, and if you turned one of them over a bit too quickly, the mercury would break the tube, and scatter all over the floor. I don't know how much he had, all I remember was that it was heavy enough to require two hands to lift it. He used it to clean relay contacts, among other things.

When I was a Duracell most of the mercury I used came in cases, each case containing a dozen 5 lb plastic bottles. That was really a small amount compared to the amounts they used at their main production plants down south. But I was in a R&D facility so we were making much smaller batches of anode mixes for test cells. In those days the anode mixes contained 7% mercury by weight, the rest was powdered zinc, water and a gelling agent. The mercury would be blended with the zinc to form an amalgam. Why did they use mercury at all ? Well, for one it enhanced cell performance and second it inhibited out-gassing making it much less likely that a cell would vent and leak. These days they are all mercury free. Don't know what they replaced it with. I wonder if any of the work I did way back in the early 1980's had any impact on the mercury free alkaline cells of today. Good chance they still have copies of my notebooks stored somewhere in their records.

Mercury is weird stuff to play with. When it hits the floor, it breaks up into countless little balls of liquid metal. Cleaning it up is fairly easy, though. You just get a big ball going, and it will all come back together when you move the ball around.

Yeah I used to do that all the time when i was a kid. My Dad brought home a small vial of mercury from the place he worked in and I used to pour some into a dish and break it up into tiny balls and then try and use one ball to collect up all the others without any of the other balls colliding. The stuff was just too cool to not enjoy, especially as a youngster. It was hard to envision that this was actually a liquid metal and its properties were very intriguing.

It's surprising I'm not mad as a hatter after that toy. But we chewed lead solder like chewing gum, too, and used every kind of carcinogenic chemical that has ever been popular in the electronics industry.

From what I read elemental mercury is not that problematic unless you swallow it, adsorb it through a cut in the skin, or breath in its vapours, particularly if the mercury is heated in an enclosed space. What is far more dangerous than elemental mercury are mercury compounds which are soluble, easily adsorbed into the body, and can be in solid powder form that can become airborne and accidentally inhaled or ingested. As kids occaisionaly playing with mercury in its elemental form is not that dangerous and probably why we are not mad hatters today... or are we ??? :)

As a kid I played around with plenty of dangerous stuff. I remember my dad gave me his old lead casting (Kast-A-Toy it was called) set for making toy soldiers. he got it when he was a kid back in the 1930's My dad brought me so lead ingots and I spent many hours melting lead in the electric pot provided with the kit and then pouring the lead into the molds to cast the toy lead soldiers. To this date I still have the kit and probably still have a few of the soldiers laying around somewhere. Could you imagine such a toy being sold today ?? As an adult I also had my share of handling dangerous stuff when i was working in industry, i.e mercury, cadmium, lead, concentrated acids, cyanide solutions and even some low- moderate level radioactive materials used in measuring devices and test equipment.

Perhaps it was a good idea that I eventually settled on a degree and a career in math / computer sciences. Probably a bit safer in the long term...LOL.

[n2ize]

Got my Gallium today. A 40 g sample. It came packed in a plastic vial and was shipped from China. So far I've run it through some tests. A small piece in mmy hand melted within a few seconds. Since the ambient temperature is too cold I immersed the vial in some warm water and so far it is melting as expected. It is a very fascinating element. Much like mercury when in it's liquid state (although less toxic). When solid it is a soft metal with a beautiful silvery sheen. Definitely a fascinating and very beautiful element. A nice addition to my mineral and element collection.

[KG4CGC]

Build a crystal radio using it as a rectifier.

[n2ize]

Build a crystal radio using it as a rectifier.

Well, once Gallium is converted into the compound gallium arsenide it can be used to create all sorts of semiconductor devices/.

[KG4NEL]

Well, once Gallium is converted into the compound gallium arsenide it can be used to create all sorts of semiconductor devices/.

Keeping arsenic in your hand might not be as harmless.

I know, I know, uphill to school both ways, mercury and uranium on cereal and waffles in the old days...

[K2GSP]

We don't use radioactive Gallium much anymore. Years back it was a pretty regular study, but now there are several other tests using Indium or technetium that have taken it's place.

[n2ize]

We don't use radioactive Gallium much anymore. Years back it was a pretty regular study, but now there are several other tests using Indium or technetium that have taken it's place.

Gallium has about 4 natural isotopes, most of which are stable & nonradioactive. 1 of the 4 is very slightly radioactive with an extremely long half life. You might be thinking of the Ga-67 isotope (gamma emitter) which I believe is a man made isotope. I believe it is produced by beta bombardment in a cyclotron. The reason Ga-67 was desirable in medicine was due to its very short half life, approx 3 days. This way a patient doesn't stay radioactive for too long. There is also another isotope produced that has an even shorter half life (measured in minutes).

What kind of tests were you using it for ? From what I remember reading it was primarily used for cancer screening.