Discovery date : approx 1500BC
Discovered by: -
Origin of the name: Mercury is named after the planet, Mercury.
Allotropes :
~>MERCURY is a chemical element with symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is commonly known as quicksilver and was formerly named hydrargyrum A heavy, silvery d-block element, mercury is the only metallic element that is liquid at standard conditions for temperature and pressure. The only other element that is liquid under room temperature.
| FACT BOX | |||
| Group | 12 | Melting point | −38.829°C, −37.892°F, 234.321 K |
| Period | 6 | Boiling point | 356.619°C, 673.914°F, 629.769 K |
| Block | d | Density (g cm−3) | 13.5336 |
| Atomic number | 80 | Relative atomic mass | 200.592 |
| State at 20°C | Liquid | Key isotopes | 202Hg |
| Electron configuration | [Xe] 4f145d106s2 | CAS number | 7439-97-6 |
| ChemSpider ID | 22373 | ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database | |
Cinnabar (aka vermilion, mercury sulfide, HgS), was used as a bright red pigment by the Palaeolithic painters of 30,000 years ago to decorate caves in Spain and France. Cinnabar would yield up its mercury simply on heating in a crucible, and the metal fascinated people because it was a liquid that would dissolve gold. The ancients used in on a large scale to extract alluvial gold from the sediment of rivers. The mercury dissolved the gold which could be reclaimed by distilling off the mercury.
The Almadén deposit in Spain provided Europe with its mercury. In the Americas, it was the Spanish conquerors who exploited the large deposits of cinnabar at Huancavelica in order to extract gold. In 1848 the miners of the Californian Gold Rush used mercury from the New Almaden Mines of California.
Although highly toxic, mercury had many uses, as in thermometers, but these are now strictly curtained.