mercury processing

Introduction

      preparation of the ore for use in various products.

      Mercury (Hg) has a unique combination of physical properties. Its low melting point (−38.87° C [−38° F]) and boiling point (356.9° C [674° F]), high specific gravity (13.5 grams per cubic centimetre), uniform volume expansion over the entire range of temperatures in its liquid state, and high surface tension (so that it does not wet glass) make it useful for the measurement of temperature in thermometers and of pressure in barometers and manometers. In addition, the high electrical conductivity of liquid mercury has led to its use in sealed electric switches and relays, industrial power rectifiers, fluorescent and mercury-vapour lamps, mercury cell batteries, and as moving cathodes in the large-scale production of chlorine and caustic soda.

      Because mercury is highly toxic, care must be exercised in its handling and transport. By limiting exposure to mercury metal, vapours, and compounds through such preventive measures as proper ventilation, plant cleanliness and personal hygiene, industrial plants can be made relatively safe from the dangers of mercury poisoning.

History

      The recovery and uses of mercury, also known as quicksilver, have been described since antiquity. Its use in the early 2nd millennium BC in Egypt has been implied but not authenticated, as the use of synonyms in ancient writings obscures the meaning of some writers, but the mining and concentrating of cinnabar, the most common ore of mercury, were certainly described in the 4th century BC. Alchemists in China were believed to have used mercury in trying to convert base metals to gold as early as the 2nd century BC, and the Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote in the 1st century about the recovery of quicksilver by distillation and condensation, the forerunner of modern methods of metallurgical treatment. Pliny also described the trade in mercury and cinnabar between Spain and Rome.

      Because mercury was credited in folklore with the power to ward off evil spirits and cure various ailments, it acquired various therapeutic and agricultural uses. By the 16th century, crude furnaces for treating cinnabar by distillation and condensation were meeting the growing demand for quicksilver in medicine and in the amalgamation of gold and silver ores. Beginning in the 17th century, advancing science and technology brought a continuous increase in demand for mercury for use in thermometers, barometers, and electrical and chemical applications.

      In the early mining and furnacing of cinnabar and mercury, workers showed the symptoms of mercury poisoning, but little was known of the cause and treatment. As operators learned to reduce the escape of gases by improving furnaces and condensers and to promote personal hygiene, the incidence of poisoning declined. Throughout history, cinnabar has been used as a pigment or colouring because of its attractive red colour, and in the 19th century some American Indians in California complained of illness that was diagnosed as mercury poisoning caused by cinnabar in war paint. Little was known about the release of mercury into the environment by the chemical, electrical, and battery industries until the 20th century, when the medical profession and government agencies began to evaluate plants and operations. Thereafter, regulations reducing plant emissions improved the environment in and around these operations.

Ores

      There are more than 25 known minerals containing mercury, but the principal ore mineral is cinnabar, a soft, red to reddish brown mercury sulfide. Some cinnabar deposits may also contain elemental mercury. The mineral has been found in all continents except Antarctica. It occurs in all types and ages of rock, usually alone but sometimes in association with antimony, gold, iron, and zinc.

      Large commercial deposits of mercury have been mined at Almadén, Spain; Idrija, Slovenia; Monte Amiata, Italy; Santa Barbara, Peru; and New Almaden, Calif., U.S.

mining and concentrating

      Mercury deposits are small and irregular, occurring sometimes as disseminated deposits but usually as veinlets. This precludes large-scale, highly mechanized mining methods. The most common method of ore recovery is underground mining, with conventional drilling and blasting followed by scraping or mechanical loading into ore cars.

      Because most cinnabar as mined contains less than 1 percent mercury, various mineral-processing methods, such as jigging, shaking, screening, elutriation, and flotation, have been practiced to concentrate the ore. Flotation separation by the usual procedures for sulfide ores has had some success in the United States, but, because cinnabar is soft and friable, crushing and grinding the ore to reduce it to a size small enough to liberate the mineral may cause significant losses as slimes in the flotation tank. Although various methods are effective in producing higher-grade concentrates of cinnabar for furnacing, they cannot compete economically with the direct furnacing of the ore either as mined or after preliminary sorting by hand. A growing source of mercury in the United States is as a by-product of large, low-grade gold mining operations.

Extraction and refining

Pyrometallurgy

      The pyrometallurgical extraction of mercury from its ore is essentially a distillation process. When heat is applied to the sulfide ore in the presence of air, oxygen combines with the sulfur to form sulfur dioxide, and the metal is liberated at a temperature above its boiling point. The gases are then passed through a series of U-shaped tubes to condense the mercury vapour to the liquid phase.

      Various vertical furnaces have been used to extract quicksilver since the earliest known crude furnaces were used at the Almadén Mine in Spain in the 12th century. The most common furnace in use in Europe is the Cermak-Spirek shaft furnace, which can treat either coarse feed (at least 4 centimetres, or 1.5 inches) or (with modification) finer material. The furnace can also accept different grades of ore. The ore is mixed with charcoal or coke fuel and charged to the top of the furnace. Combustion of fuel by a blast of hot air at the bottom produces hot gases, which, at about 300° C (570° F), pass upward through the falling ore and vaporize the liberated mercury. The heat generated by this oxidation-reduction reaction raises the temperature of the incoming air for yet more efficient combustion, and hot gases at the top of the furnace, where the temperature reaches 700° C (1,300° F), dry the freshly charged rock and coke.

      Retorts are used for mercury extraction in small mining operations or to burn soot collected in the condensing tubes of large furnaces. Retorts are cheap to install, but they are more costly to operate than furnaces because the material in such batch operations must be manually charged and removed.

      In the United States, rotary and multiple-hearth furnaces have been widely used, offering the advantage over other furnaces of higher capacity and continuous operation. Mechanical feeding and discharge reduces exposure to mercury vapours, sulfur dioxide fumes, and dust and lowers labour costs as well.

hydrometallurgy

      Mercury can be leached from ores and concentrates with a solution of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. It can then be recovered by precipitation with aluminum or by electrolysis. Leaching is more costly than furnacing and is not effective on ores of irregular composition.

Secondary mercury

      Significant quantities of mercury have been reclaimed from dental amalgams, oxide and acetate sludges, and battery scrap. Virtually all the metal can be recovered from scrapped mercury cells, mercury boilers, electrical apparatuses, and control instruments.

Refining

      Metal produced by furnacing is known as prime virgin mercury (having a purity of more than 99.9 percent) and is bright and clean in appearance. This grade is suitable for most uses. When required, impurities can be removed by multiple distillation, usually in retort-type furnaces.

The metal and its alloys (alloy)

      Mercury is packaged in cast-iron, wrought-iron, or spun-steel bottles or flasks 10 to 18 centimetres (4 to 7 inches) in diameter and about 30 centimetres high. The net weight of one flask of mercury is 34.5 kilogram (76 pounds), the commercial unit of world trade.

Electrical uses

      One of the greatest uses of mercury has been as a moving cathode that settles at the bottom of electrolytic cells in the production of chlorine and caustic soda. During the electrolysis of brine, liberated sodium amalgamates with the mercury cathode and then reacts with water to form sodium hydroxide. (Chlorine is generated at the anode.) Losses of mercury in the brine sludge, wash water, and caustic soda have caused a decline of this application in favour of other processes that do not use mercury.

      Dry-cell batteries are a large consumer of mercury. Mercury batteries can be operated at high temperatures and humidity, have long life spans, and deliver the same ampere-hours of service at their rated current ranges whether operated continuously or intermittently. The major applications of these batteries have been for hearing aids, photography, and military equipment. Other electrical applications included rectifier bulbs, oscillators, and power control switches. Mercury-vapour lamps have been used in industrial floodlighting, street lighting, motion-picture projection, photography, and heat therapy.

Metallurgical uses (metallurgy)

      Frozen mercury has been used for the precision casting of complex or intricate parts. After casting, the mercury mold can easily be removed by melting without damaging the cast product.

      Mercury amalgamates, or mixes, readily with many metals. Amalgams of mercury, silver, and tin have been the most successful material for repairing dental cavities. Gold and silver have long been recovered by the amalgamation process, and amalgams of sodium and potassium have been used as reducing agents.

Chemical compounds

      Compounds of mercury have many uses in pharmacology, in chemical-process industries, and in agriculture.

      Bichloride of mercury, mercurochrome, and ointments of metallic mercury, yellow mercuric oxide, and ammoniated mercuric chloride have served as skin antiseptics. Mercurous chloride, or calomel, is employed as a diuretic and cathartic.

      Organic mercury compounds, particularly phenylmercury acetate, are used as agricultural fungicides for treating seeds, spraying fruit trees, and controlling weed growth. In paint manufacture, these compounds are used in the mildew proofing of paints. Mercuric chloride or mercuric sulfate is utilized as a catalyst in converting acetylene into vinyl chloride, vinyl acetate, and acetaldehyde. Other uses as catalysts are in the production of methyl styrene and glacial acetic acid.

      Mercury fulminate, resulting from a reaction of alcohol and mercuric nitrate, explodes on impact and is used in percussion caps and detonators for other explosives.

John E. Shelton

Additional Reading

Comprehensive and up-to-date information on many aspects of metallurgy, individual metals, and alloys can be found in convenient reference-form arrangement in the following works: Metals Handbook, 9th ed., 17 vol. (1978–89), a massive and detailed source prepared under the direction of the American Society for Metals, with a 10th edition that began publication in 1990; Herman F. Mark et al. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 3rd ed., 31 vol. (1978–84), formerly known as Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, with a 4th edition begun in 1991; and its European counterpart, the first English-language edition of a monumental German work, Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 5th, completely rev. ed., edited by Wolfgang Gerhartz et al. (1985– ). Ed.Leonard J. Goldwater, Mercury: A History of Quicksilver (1972), reviews the early occurrences, recovery, uses, and toxicology of mercury. A collection of conference papers on the properties of mercury is presented in Morton W. Miller and Thomas W. Clarkson (eds.), Mercury, Mercurials, and Mercaptans (1973).John E. Shelton

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