How Mercury Amalgamation Works

After mercury has gotten all the fine gold in any one of these ways it turns into what is known as an amalgam and needs to be treated to form a button. A button then needs to get treated by a refiner and the result of this treatment is pure gold.

Before we get into the process of how buttons are made, IMPORTANT HEALTH NOTICE: Mercury and the fumes it lets off are poisonous and people have died from inhaling them. If you are going to be doing any sort of heating operation with it, make sure this is done out in the open, that no children are around, and make sure to not inhale the vapor. After you use a pan to vaporize the mercury do not by any means attempt to use the pan for cooking afterwards. When it is heated to its point of evaporation, which is 675 degrees, it will let off a heavy white smoke. However when it is heated to the temperature of boiling water, it will volatize and will give off close to invisible fumes. People have suffered permanent damage because of this and even death due to the fact that they thought the mercury was not vaporizing because they could not see the heavy white smoke.

Unless you are going to be working for many months and need to use the mercury again, heating the mercury in order to make a button is highly not suggested. The best thing is to take the amalgam to a refinery and get it done professionally by people that know exactly what they are doing. If you must do so, there are ways of doing so but they are not safe and not suggested.

The easiest of these consists of placing the amalgam on a piece of metal sheet and heating it over the fire. In the past the miners used to use a frying pan…obviously we do not need to tell you that you will NEVER, EVER be able to use the frying pan to cook again so wave good bye to it. This technique will cause a sponge like button however you will lose all the mercury because it will evaporate.

Another way is the open fire method with a potato. In this a medium sized potato is used and is cut in half and a little hole is carved out in the middle of the potato with a spoon. The depression or hole should be a lot bigger than the amalgam. The amalgam is then put on a metal sheet and or on a frying pan and the potato is set over it. the pan is put on the fire and is heated for twenty minutes or longer. You should not attempt to do this anyways because there will be fumes of the mercury escaping from the bottom of the potato and because of this the operation is not safe.

After the potato has been cooked for a long enough time, it is then taken out and if all the mercury is gone from the amalgam, you have gotten the job done, if it has not been completed then it needs to be heated again and continued for a little longer amount of time. After the button is ready it then needs to be taken out and the potato needs to be crushed and thrown away.

There are the most commonly known of methods of transforming little amounts of amalgam in the field. If you consider using either of these methods (which we highly recommend you don’t) make sure it is done in the open and that the wind is blowing the mercury fumes away from you. NEVER HEAT MERCURY IN A CLOSED ROOM.