Expert: P.G.Panikkar - 7/6/2009

Question
Hello my new best friend. I have a couple of questions for you. If you can't answer one or the other maybe you can direct me to the right person.
I bought a storage unit at an auction and inside was a lot of gold mining equiptment. One of the items I still have left is 8.5 ounces of liquid mercury.
They first question is how do I sell it and the how much should I ask for this stuff.
It is and has been sealed in a vial. The other question is that I read on another site or maybe it was your answer to another, that mecurcury evaporates. So, with the seperation process, and it being so difficult, is it the greed of those who want the gold now, or is it that the evaporation takes 30000,000 years?? If it evaporates quicky then why all the fuss with seperating it from the gold?? My basic question is how do I sell it though and what is a fair price for the 8.5 ounces I have. Thank for you time in reading and answering this note. Buck Wheat> Washington State

Answer
First of all please understand that  8.5 ounces of mercury  is not a gold mine for you. It is only a metal in liquid  form with melting point at 38.83C and boiling point at356.73°C .

It is highly toxic by ingestion or inhalation of the dust,[3] and mercury poisoning can also result from exposure to soluble forms (such as mercuric chloride or methylmercury), inhalation of mercury vapor, or eating fish contaminated with mercury.

Mercury dissolves to form amalgams with gold, zinc and many metals. Because iron is an exception to this rule, iron flasks have been traditionally used to trade mercury. Other metals that do not form amalgams with mercury include tantalum, tungsten and platinum. When heated, mercury also reacts with oxygen in air to form mercury oxide, which then can be decomposed by further heating to higher temperatures.
The mercury you are in possession may have been purchased and kept for the use for amalgamation process in the gold mine.Generally the or is screened , crushed and stamped in stamp batteries before amalgamation and Cynanidation.As the mercury is in sealed vials, I think that it is not as  amalgam and no gold is there.

Regarding to the price ,I find in yahoo answers 2 years ago as follows

"If you're just looking for a bulk price of high purity mercury, then fisher scientific sells 24 lbs for $4300. works out to about 39 cents per gram.

if you're running a plant and purchasing bulk mercury is your thing, then you could probably buy it for about 1/4 of the fisher price.... say $0.10 per gram"
I am not a commercial person  and I do not know the market fluctuations in last 2 years. You may contact some chemists in your area get quotations before you  sell the mercury.
If you feel so, you can go to any commercial site like www.alibaba.com
and advertise to get a good price also.

With due respect I wish to state to all visitors of this site that I am a metallurgist with experience and expertise in the primary zones of iron and steel making.

Regards,
P.G.Panikkar
pgpanikkar@engineeringconsultancy.info