Ammonium amalgam

Anapan

That was so awesome! You made the single coolest liquid metal video on Youtube. If a VFX CG artist was involved, the Terminator movies would be put to shame.

The error in the date was fixed. You said 1865 throughout the video.

Silviu T

However if it does work, that would be AFAIK fresh research and publishable.

Silviu T

I was using the hydrazinium above as a particular case of substituted ammonium (which ionized amines would be too). I don't really expect it to work but someone has to actually try before it can be confirmed. I don't have any mercury so can't do it myself. The reason I say I don't expect it to work is the following. The ammonium probably has an ionic radius small enough to be able to insert itself between atoms of mercury. Bulkier molecules may not be able to do that.

mrkhrdr@gmail.com

Also, I'm not too too surprised that NH4NO3 didn't work. After all, you're trying to reduce the NH4+ ion with Na, and the nitrate is an oxidizer.

mrkhrdr@gmail.com

Very nice, and interesting. Why do you use solutions in water, when the sodium in the amalgam reacts with it in a side reaction? Have you tried grinding the amalgam with solid NH4Cl?

mrkhrdr@gmail.com

Or organic amines, ethylamine for example (methylamine is a gas)?

Nile Red

With plain mercury, nothing happens. Thats where i got the shot showing the water just sitting on top of it. That was actually an ammonium chloride solution

Nile Red

Interesting idea. If i ever try this again, ill definitely try that.

Roger Lee

Oh, and sign me up as a total inorganic geek.

Roger Lee

Out of curiosity, what would happen with plain mercury? Is it possible that the sodium is in some way making it less stable?

Silviu T

Here's a challenge though. Is ammonium the only pseudo-alkali that reacts like this? How about phosphonium? Or hydrazinium?

Silviu T

Hmm. They didn't have NMR back in 1865.

Nile Red

While I dont recommend working with mercury, it isnt TOO bad. Mostly just annoying because you have to be careful handling it.

Yeah I can imagine! And fully testing all the possibilities would be... intensive. I mean, keep it in mind if you ever need some new video ideas, but don't sacrifice months of productivity on it if your heart isn't in it. It is actually the kind of project that I would love to just methodically work through, but unfortunately, Mercury is one of the few things I will just never work with. Not even when sealed inside a thermometer and to be used inside of a high-flow glovebox.

Nile Red

Confirmed.

Nile Red

okay, thats good!

Nile Red

Between doing it and editing, ive seen it puff up too many times!

Nile Red

That all sounds very interesting and is something that would be cool to see. However, for now at least, i think im done playing with it :p

This is really interesting! I think the fact that the salt that forms is a solid, has something to do with it. For example, by heating it you accelerated the decomposition, but also removed a lot of the water, so when you cooled it back down and added more of the aqueous solution, the water couldn't get back in as fast to dissolve the salts left behind. I really want you to do this experiment under anhydrous conditions though. I really wonder what would happen if you used different alkali metals with mercury, under vacuum, and then added anhydrous ammonia to it, until the pressure was great enough for liquid ammonia to form at room temperature. Then you could slowly add some anhydrous HCl gas, to see if it produced the same effect. Finally, you could slowly let in some water vapour/liquid water and see if that has any effect. Contrasting this with another reducible liquid (such as ethanol, acetone or nitroethane) which would eventually destroy the amalgam, but which doesn't dissolve a lot of the product salt, should be enough to answer most of the remaining questions. This might require many different alkali metals and ammonium counter-ions to be tested to find suitable combinations though. (Hydrogen Iodide with the anhydrous Sodium/Potassium Amalgam and then adding Acetone, which the produced salt IS soluble in, would also be quite interesting. If this proceeds similarly to the aqueous case, it would give more confidence to the idea that solubility of the produced salt is important.)

Nile Red

i know what you mean. I tend to prefer organic as well.

Alf-Marius Dahl Bysveen

Cool! But I almost allways like the organic chemistry much better than inorganic. PS! Watch out, so you don't end up with a T-1000!

Great Video!

Daniel Blake Shoemaker

Hmm, Cool Red Nile I assume (NH4)2Hg is very unstable. Like ammonia complexes with salts in the air, the ammonia evaporates leaving the metal oxide. Well, they are very different but it reminds me of leaving copper ammonia sulfate in air for half a day and getting copper (II) hydroxide!

I didn't catch you saying "1886." Cool amalgam!

Brian Reddeman

Wait a second, NurdRage just came back from vacation. I knew it you and NurdRage are the same person! Just somehow you have different hands. :D