/sci/ - Science & Math

>>992178
I didn't know THAT happened, I've seen many times people alluding to mercury "reacting" with aluminum and I assumed it made toxic smoke or some shit. I am sort of an amateur prospector, and I have read many instructions on how to use mercury to recover fine gold from concentrated heavy dirt. after you get all the dirt out, you place the mercury in a syringe with a cotton ball stuffed all the way down in it. The mercury comes out the tip, the gold stays in the cotton ball and you burn the cotton ball (downwind) and the gold remains behind in the ashes. I know the mercury does not alloy with the gold, it just sticks to it. I have had gold flakes that I personally dredged up clean become covered by a film of mercury which turned it silver, and then I cleaned the mercury off by cooking the gold in a pan on a small propane stove. Pic is my gold, before cooking the merc off.