> when i was talking about cleaning the mercury i meant for making
> the salts, Hg from 90c thermo's is easiest and safest to get but
> you get shitloads of glass fragments in it when you bust them....
this is the last time i'll say it: go to a big electronics store,
buy the biggest mercury switch, scarify it with a glass cutter and
break it open. for the price of a thermometer you'll get much more
Hg and no glass fragments.
as for glass fragments: why even care? glass is perfectly inert
(you're doing your reaction in glass, yes?). during the process,
at one point everything is in solution, right? just filter it then,
or combine with a flitration where you discard the filter cake.
(btw: iirc the filtercake of the HgCl2 preparation can be reused,
but you'll get more than enough HgCl2 anyway...)
ps: while you're at the electronics store, get some super cheap
sodium persulfate, this will spare you doing chemical engineering
in your kitchen...