What's a good material for containing mercury? It wants to be fireproof, so PVC and other plastics are no good. If galvanised steel sheet is OK, that would be the easiest to fold. Or aluminium. But I guess the mercury would react with most metals. Fibre cement board maybe. Or just concrete.
Glass?
Or ceramic.
Internally glazed, or the mercury will soak in, giving you a problem disposing of the container after use. Glass is the container of choice.
10 square metres of glass? It might break!
It's in glass now. If the glass breaks, there has to be a container on the floor too.
Matty F presented the following explanation :
Stainless Steel?
Maybe. The floor is concrete so a cheapskate like me would just pour a concrete wall around the perimeter. Maybe paint the whole area with epoxy paint.
How much mercury are we talking about? The stuff is damn heavy so that needs to be taken into account. About 13.5 times heavier than water and double that of iron.
It's funny stuff not sure it's reactive as such but lots of other things dissolve into it and it has a high surface tension which causes it to stick in tiny globules to even smooth looking surfaces.
A stone jar.
Traditionally, iron flasks were used to hold mercury. Bit I'm puzzled by some of your replies as to what the circumstances are. In the labs where I used to work, mercury was kept in small plastic bottles; all handling was done in a large plastic tray under a fume hood, and there was strict health monitoring of the few designated operators. There are H&S regulations on mercury handling, and presumably guidance on storage and containers is available on-line.
Quite a few litres. The floor is very solid.
If its just to contain it while you put it back then even a wooden trough will do, just seal the joints with candle wax so it can't slip out.
A neater way would be vinyl flooring with an up stand around it.
The mercury is in sealed glass containers. If there is an earthquake or a volcanic eruption or a madman with a sledge hammer, the glass could break. It's all in a sealed locked room. The mercury if it got loose could trickle under the walls. It's not my problem but I like to think about all the possibilities.
Thank you. An excellent idea. If any mercury leaks you can be sure the professionals will be dealing with it.
I guess this contains mercury pretty well :)
Steel should be good
NT
10m^2 by what depth? 10m^2 is a measure of area NOT volume. What volume do you have? And if you mean 10m^3, what the hell...?
Why didn't they just use a switch?
Imagine Chernobyl with rows of these, but without the radioactivity:
Say about five metres by two metres, and less than 1 mm high. But it might splash over the side so I'd make the sides 100 mm high.
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