WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.375 --> 00:00:04.886 Mercury forms alloys with most metals in a process known as amalgamation. 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:09.033 Last week, I messed around and tested it out with some gold leaf, 00:00:09.283 --> 00:00:10.800 and it was pretty cool. 00:00:10.983 --> 00:00:14.674 This time though, I'm going to see what happens when I add it to aluminum. 00:00:14.675 --> 00:00:16.591 It's supposed to be quite destructive, 00:00:16.592 --> 00:00:19.525 which is why you're not allowed bringing mercury on a plane. 00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:24.129 So I went to Home Depot and I bought a strip of aluminum. 00:00:24.686 --> 00:00:29.058 I cut out a small section and drilled a hole about halfway through. 00:00:29.775 --> 00:00:33.700 This little crater is important because mercury is super annoying, 00:00:33.792 --> 00:00:36.375 and without it, it would just slide off the plate. 00:00:36.800 --> 00:00:41.483 Under normal conditions, aluminum is surrounded by a protective oxide layer. 00:00:41.933 --> 00:00:47.292 Metallic mercury isn't able to penetrate through this barrier, so it does nothing. 00:00:48.225 --> 00:00:50.825 Sometimes, it's possible to get things going 00:00:50.973 --> 00:00:53.817 by manually scratching away the oxide layer. 00:00:54.200 --> 00:00:58.808 I tried doing this about two or three times, but it wasn't working for me. 00:00:59.542 --> 00:01:02.042 I even tried to brute force things using a drill, 00:01:02.158 --> 00:01:04.208 but that didn't get things going either. 00:01:04.633 --> 00:01:07.708 I thought that maybe it was just super slow to get started, 00:01:07.858 --> 00:01:11.050 so I went to lunch and I left it for about an hour. 00:01:11.725 --> 00:01:13.692 When I came back, nothing had changed. 00:01:14.250 --> 00:01:16.400 Clearly, I have to use a different strategy. 00:01:16.825 --> 00:01:19.648 Instead of trying to remove the oxide layer mechanically, 00:01:19.800 --> 00:01:21.608 I'm going to try to do it chemically. 00:01:22.517 --> 00:01:27.067 I took out all the mercury, and I added some dilute hydrochloric acid. 00:01:27.633 --> 00:01:32.492 The hydrochloric acid quickly reacts with the oxide layer and dissolves it away. 00:01:33.017 --> 00:01:37.175 This exposes fresh aluminum metal, which also reacts with the acid. 00:01:38.492 --> 00:01:42.025 I let it go for about a minute, and then I get rid of the acid. 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:45.742 With the acid gone, we'll start to reform the oxide layer, 00:01:46.133 --> 00:01:48.367 so it's important to add the mercury quickly. 00:01:50.292 --> 00:01:54.392 The amalgamation started almost right away, but it's really hard to see. 00:01:55.600 --> 00:01:58.842 In the reflection, you can see me lean over to get a better look, 00:01:58.975 --> 00:02:01.883 and I noticed some very small hairs forming 00:02:01.933 --> 00:02:04.200 between the aluminum and the mercury. 00:02:05.917 --> 00:02:11.475 In real-time, this process is really slow, so I set things up for a time-lapse. 00:02:12.692 --> 00:02:16.208 The major thing going on here is the combination of the mercury 00:02:16.209 --> 00:02:18.767 with the aluminum to form the amalgam. 00:02:19.275 --> 00:02:22.350 Some of the amalgam that forms gets dissolved in the mercury 00:02:22.418 --> 00:02:24.200 and makes its way to the top. 00:02:24.875 --> 00:02:28.592 When it gets there,it comes in contact with oxygen in the air, 00:02:28.593 --> 00:02:31.700 and it reacts to form white aluminum oxide. 00:02:32.342 --> 00:02:35.083 This part of the process is pretty short-lived though, 00:02:35.208 --> 00:02:38.492 because it quickly gets covered and protected by the oxide. 00:02:38.850 --> 00:02:42.150 This prevents fibers from growing directly from the mercury, 00:02:42.287 --> 00:02:45.108 but obviously, they continue going out from the sides. 00:02:46.100 --> 00:02:49.950 This happens because some of the mercury is dissolving into the aluminum. 00:02:50.667 --> 00:02:54.100 The amalgam here also reacts with air to form the oxide, 00:02:54.283 --> 00:02:57.375 but the difference is that it doesn't shut itself down. 00:02:57.933 --> 00:03:01.267 The dissolved mercury can continue to creep along the surface 00:03:01.368 --> 00:03:03.158 and amalgamate more aluminum. 00:03:03.700 --> 00:03:05.920 In theory, this process should keep going 00:03:06.017 --> 00:03:10.200 until the entire surface is covered with a thick layer of the oxide. 00:03:10.950 --> 00:03:14.058 The mercury could also penetrate deeper into the aluminum 00:03:14.088 --> 00:03:15.692 and compromise its strength, 00:03:15.958 --> 00:03:18.400 but I think that takes a really long time to do. 00:03:19.458 --> 00:03:22.958 About four hours later, I decided to end the time-lapse. 00:03:23.475 --> 00:03:24.958 I spun the thing around, 00:03:24.959 --> 00:03:28.983 and when I noticed the other side looked a lot cooler, I was a little bit sad. 00:03:29.720 --> 00:03:31.692 Anyway, when I poke at it, 00:03:31.783 --> 00:03:35.033 you can see that it's not structurally very strong. 00:03:35.758 --> 00:03:40.192 I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was surprised at how fragile it was. 00:03:41.300 --> 00:03:44.142 It looks like there's quite a bit of aluminum oxide here, 00:03:44.242 --> 00:03:47.433 but surprisingly, there's only about 200 milligrams. 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:52.175 I went to clean things up a little, so I scraped away a lot of the oxide. 00:03:52.720 --> 00:03:55.654 On the edges, this reveals fresh aluminum amalgam, 00:03:55.825 --> 00:03:57.850 which is the silver stuff that you see. 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:02.283 As usual, though, it quickly reacts and turns gray again. 00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:07.208 As I said before, some of the mercury has dissolved into the aluminum. 00:04:07.600 --> 00:04:11.192 I was really curious to see how much more amalgamation would occur, 00:04:11.350 --> 00:04:13.608 if I took away all the visible mercury. 00:04:14.358 --> 00:04:17.567 I removed the large drop, and I cleaned things up. 00:04:21.733 --> 00:04:24.125 I then left it out and did another time-lapse 00:04:24.158 --> 00:04:25.850 over the course of a couple hours. 00:04:26.300 --> 00:04:29.792 There was apparently enough left to get a decent amalgamation going, 00:04:29.898 --> 00:04:32.325 But it was actually less than I was expecting. 00:04:33.275 --> 00:04:34.625 I cleaned things up again, 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:38.350 and this time when I scraped the edges, they're not silver like before. 00:04:38.500 --> 00:04:40.675 Clearly the amalgamation process is done. 00:04:41.292 --> 00:04:44.808 I think the reason that it stops, is because all the mercury that's present 00:04:44.809 --> 00:04:48.775 is amalgamated with aluminum, but it's hidden under the oxide layer. 00:04:49.242 --> 00:04:51.008 Without the main drop in the middle, 00:04:51.080 --> 00:04:55.825 we don't have excess mercury to creep out and continue making more amalgam. 00:04:56.200 --> 00:04:59.008 It also might be possible that small amounts of mercury 00:04:59.009 --> 00:05:03.850 are taken away as the fibers grow, but I don't know if that actually happens. 00:05:04.680 --> 00:05:07.525 Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and react things again 00:05:07.526 --> 00:05:09.450 because I want to highlight something. 00:05:10.342 --> 00:05:14.850 Like before to get things going, I clean it up with some hydrochloric acid. 00:05:15.517 --> 00:05:17.367 Then I add the mercury back, 00:05:17.575 --> 00:05:21.867 but this time, instead of doing things dry, I add some water. 00:05:24.640 --> 00:05:27.425 This prevents any cool oxide fibers from forming, 00:05:27.508 --> 00:05:30.283 but I want you to notice is the bubbling that's occurring. 00:05:30.840 --> 00:05:34.358 Instead of reacting with air, it's reacting with the water here, 00:05:34.450 --> 00:05:37.575 to form aluminum hydroxide and hydrogen gas. 00:05:38.142 --> 00:05:41.798 I was initially only expecting bubbles to come from below the mercury, 00:05:41.975 --> 00:05:44.142 but they're actually coming from everywhere. 00:05:44.450 --> 00:05:47.592 What this tells me is that there was still some amalgam present, 00:05:47.767 --> 00:05:50.392 and it was just trapped under the gray oxide. 00:05:51.225 --> 00:05:53.306 When I went to clean up the mercury this time, 00:05:53.506 --> 00:05:56.117 it was actually more of a pain than usual. 00:05:56.858 --> 00:06:00.700 Some of it got stuck to the side, and I wasn't able to get it out. 00:06:01.358 --> 00:06:05.775 Instead of letting it go to waste, though, I just decided to do another time-lapse. 00:06:06.767 --> 00:06:09.425 I'm glad I did because although this one is shorter, 00:06:09.555 --> 00:06:11.717 I think it's cooler than the first one. 00:06:25.080 --> 00:06:27.958 When it was done I cleaned it up just like the last one, 00:06:28.233 --> 00:06:31.217 but there were still some little mercury bits left over. 00:06:31.892 --> 00:06:34.608 I think they were just covered with way too much oxide, 00:06:34.742 --> 00:06:37.425 and weren't really able to interact with the aluminum. 00:06:38.440 --> 00:06:42.708 I was curious to see how much damage was done, so I cut the plate in half. 00:06:43.500 --> 00:06:45.025 When I take a look on the side, 00:06:45.080 --> 00:06:49.183 It doesn't look like it went deep at all, and it was really just surface level. 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:51.525 I cleaned up one of the sides, 00:06:51.700 --> 00:06:55.208 and we can see that, again, it really didn't do that much damage. 00:06:55.758 --> 00:06:58.100 I imagine to really destroy the aluminum, 00:06:58.183 --> 00:07:01.225 the mercury would have to sit there for quite a long time, 00:07:01.425 --> 00:07:04.758 or we would have to continually remove the oxide that forms. 00:07:06.767 --> 00:07:08.392 In terms of its application, 00:07:08.575 --> 00:07:13.250 aluminum amalgams are commonly used in chemistry for reduction reactions. 00:07:13.908 --> 00:07:18.742 As we saw earlier, metallic mercury wasn't amazing at attacking the aluminum, 00:07:18.850 --> 00:07:23.083 so for these reactions, we usually use a soluble mercury salt. 00:07:23.775 --> 00:07:27.842 The general idea here is that mercury keeps exposing fresh aluminum, 00:07:27.992 --> 00:07:30.150 which really likes to donate electrons. 00:07:30.892 --> 00:07:34.217 a somewhat common but highly illegal use of this reaction, 00:07:34.325 --> 00:07:36.275 is in the production of MDMA. 00:07:37.417 --> 00:07:40.042 Anyway, I think that's about it for this video. 00:07:40.692 --> 00:07:42.941 Let me know if you'd like to see me try something else 00:07:42.942 --> 00:07:44.641 in terms of aluminum amalgams, 00:07:44.841 --> 00:07:47.775 and tell me some other metals you'd like to see me try. 00:07:49.280 --> 00:07:50.983 Now just for a quick shout out, 00:07:51.117 --> 00:07:54.708 you guys should check out the website that was made by one of my patrons. 00:07:55.267 --> 00:07:56.600 It's a pretty simple setup, 00:07:56.725 --> 00:07:59.575 and it's used to generate molecule wallpapers. 00:08:00.242 --> 00:08:03.308 You can just type in the chemical name, or its structure, 00:08:03.400 --> 00:08:06.967 and you can choose the color of the molecule as well as the background. 00:08:07.517 --> 00:08:10.350 If you have some time, you should definitely check it out, 00:08:10.351 --> 00:08:12.242 and I've linked it in the description. 00:08:12.720 --> 00:08:15.917 A big thanks goes out to all of my supporters on Patreon. 00:08:16.292 --> 00:08:18.391 Everyone who supports me will see my videos 00:08:18.392 --> 00:08:23.333 24 hours before I post it to YouTube, and they can also directly message me. 00:08:23.633 --> 00:08:26.075 Anyone who supports me with $5 or more 00:08:26.100 --> 00:08:28.867 will also get their name at the end like you see here.