reductions in general

[picloud]

One of my company's projects is the in-situ reduction of mercuric ion by mixing contaminated soil with iodine and red phosphorous.  Water is contributed by the atmosphere.  After two weeks zinc and sulphur are added to form the Hg-Zn-sulfide complex which immobilizes the shit. 

Now were looking at recycling lithium batteries on the same site by adding liquid ammonia -hoo boy! from benzyllic reduction to environmental cleanup in two jumps.

This lead us to wondering how to acquire research quantities of liquid ammonia without getting visited by a convoy of black suburbans ...
Cheers,

picloud

[Unobtainium]

If your "company" is run out of your garage, then there's no way in hell.






Free Spitball.

[Dope_Amine]

Wow, my girlfriend has been talking with me a lot lately about the issues of higher mercury toxins in groundwater and ocean waters (thus in making more sea mammals infertile or dead).  She really wants to get a study going to figure out how to start a process to remove all of the mercury.  She's an ecology girlie looking for my chemical knowledge to help on this issue but I haven't a clue.  Any other info you could give me about your clean-up processes would be greatly appreciated.
something for your mind.......

[halfapint]

Chelates, those metal-grabbing crab claw molecules which enfold metal atoms (or ions?) Like EDTA, but you'd want it to have a polymer backbone, to keep it stuck to your nets. You want it to have a reversible let-it-go-now cycle to reclaim the metal, capable of lots of repetitions before the material would have to be refreshed.

I think anything that would catch mercury would also catch all the heavier metals. Maybe it can't bee all that selective. But of course, after mercury, the heavier the more valuable the metal, so who's bitching.
turning science fact into <<science fiction>>

[foxy2]

The problem is chelators make the metal highly soluable in water, this could be disasterous from a pollution standpoint.  You could seriously fuck up the groundwater.
Do Your Part To Win The War

[halfapint]

You fish with a hook and line, not just a hook. Just throwing a handful of hooks into the water doesn't get much done. In this notion, the chelating groups would have to bee stuck on to a macromolecule, holding it securely in the solid state to reclaim its crop of harvested metal that it pulled out of solution. Sure, the use of plain chelating agents like EDTA would ensure the dissolution of the metal. But in this case the chelating groups are not a dissolved species, they are tied on a line so to speak, in a polymer coating which never leaves the nets. This is de-polluting instead of polluting.
turning science fact into <<science fiction>>