What will happen if a mercury thermometer crashes? How to process the place of mercury spill from a thermometer with potassium permanganate, chlorine? How to find out if the mercury remained in the room after processing? In what other devices are there mercury?

From this article you will learn what to do if a thermometer crashes.

Content

Probably, such a person is not on Earth who was not familiar with the usual medical thermometer. We are very accustomed to him, and do not think about the fact that he keeps danger to a person. Is it so? How great is the danger from a broken thermometer? How much mercury is there? We find out in this article.

What will happen if the thermometer crashed in a closed room?

If you breathe mercury in pairs, a person will get sick

Mercury thermometer Convenient: when heated, the mercury expands and rises. Such a thermometer is very accurate, up to 0.01 degrees. But what to do if a thermometer crashed in a house or apartment? Even the smallest particles of mercury from it immediately begin to evaporate, and this is very harmful to people. After 2 hours of being a person in such a room, poisoning in pairs of mercury occurs. It is characteristic of such symptoms:

The weakness of the whole body and nausea, sometimes with vomiting
Abdominal pain (diarrhea, maybe with blood)
Headache
Breathe heavily
Swelling of the mucous parts of the face
Metal taste in the mouth
Chills and fever, up to 40̊c
Hallucinations

If you continue to live in an apartment where mercury was spilled, it evaporates for a long time and occurs chronic poisoning in pairs of mercury, having such symptoms:

Drowsiness, weakness
The head of dizziness constantly hurts
Exacerbation of kidney diseases, liver
The ability to get tuberculosis
Dementia
Thyroid diseases and heart
Death

How much mercury is in a thermometer?

There can be different amounts of mercury in the medical armometer, it all depends on the manufacturer:

Thermometer of the Dutch production - 1 g
A thermometer of Soviet and then Russian production-2-3 g

Read more information in the article: Is mercury danger from the thermometer and its effect on the human body?

What to do if the thermometer crashes?

Here's what you can, and what can not be done if a mercury is a mercury.

With a thermometer, you need to do very carefully so that it does not break. After all mercury from one mercury thermometer, remaining in the building, will evaporate and poison people for 20 years.

But if a medical armometer with a mercury inside has broken, you need to call the salvation service. The workers of this service will collect mercury and process the air in the apartment with an ozonator, which will make the smallest remnants of mercury in inaccessible places by non -volatile.

And if you cannot call a special service, then you need make the following:

Do not let into the room where the thermometer of other family members and animals crashed so as not to smash particles of mercury throughout the building.
Open windows, but do not do drafts.
Collect mercury to the smallest droplets with a magnet, sprint, tape or damp brush.
You can assemble small balls in a dark place, if you highlight yourself with a lamp or a flashlight, the mercury is shining.
It is no longer possible to use the soft things on which mercury hit the mercury and a carpet, even the deer, they must be placed in a plastic bag, and handed over for recycling.
Wash the floor with liquid soap dissolved in water, potassium permanganate or chlorine -containing agent.
You need to collect mercury and process a place by dressing rubber gloves, and close the nose and mouth with a mask of gauze.
If the cleaning is dragged out, every 15 minutes it is advisable to leave the room.
Drink a lot, because mercury is partially excreted from the body with kidneys.

What should not be done:

You can not sweep away the scattered mercury balls with a broom
You can not vacuum the mercury particles
You can not do drafts in the building
You can not heat the air in the apartment more than +17̊c, since with +18̊c the mercury begins to evaporate.

How does potassium permanganate affect mercury, and how to process a contaminated surface with it?

Potassium permanganate - This is an antiseptic. Under normal conditions, it does not react with mercury, for this, hydrochloric acid is also needed. Therefore, potassium permanganate does not destroy mercury, but only with water prevents her from evaporating.

For cooking potassium permanganate solution need to:

So much potassium permanganate that the solution is dark, opaque, from which there are traces on the floor
1 liter of water
1 tbsp. l. salt and vinegar essence

We make a solution:

Mix all the ingredients.
We apply the solution on the floor with a brush or rag for 1-2 hours, if it dries, moisten this place with ordinary water.
In clean water (1 l), stir 40 g of laundry soap and 50 g of soda. With this solution, I wash the floor after a manganese solution.
We apply a manganese solution to the floor for several days in a row, each time the manganese mortar withstand less time.
Often we open the windows.

How to treat a surface contaminated with mercury if a thermometer crashes?

Treat the surface contaminated with mercury or carry out demurcurization with the help of chlorine more efficiently than with potassium permanganate, but it also does not destroy mercury, but only interferes with evaporation.

For chlorine -containing solution need to:

5 liters of water
1 liter of bleaching "White"

We prepare the solution:

In plastic dishes (by no means metal), mix water and bleach.
The resulting solution, sponge or rag, my floor, especially wash the skirting boards, cracks, leave for 15 minutes, and then wash off with clean water.
After washing the floor, we do not pour the solution into the toilet or sink, but hand over for disposal, where mercury collected from the floor.
We repeat the floor with chloride solution several times within 2-3 weeks.
Vitrify often. You should not do too low the temperature in the room, so the mercury will evaporate longer.

What is the danger of mercury?

Mercury is a metal that has no smell, at room temperature has a liquid state. The temperature of its melting +38̊c, freezing temperature -39̊c. For people, mercury vapors are dangerous, which, having fallen into the body, are not excreted by 80%, but quickly spread to the lungs, blood, other organs, affect the nerve cells. Pregnant women are especially harmful to pregnant women, it affects the brain of a child who has not yet been born.

What other daily devices contain mercury?

Another, frequent item in everyday life with mercury is energy -saving light bulbs

More mercury is contained in such devices:

Mercury gas -discharge lamps
Energy -saving fluorescent light bulbs (70 mg)
Mercury-tohy galvanic batteries

In addition, mercury is in the air:

Mercury is formed in the air when burning gas and coal
Mercury evaporates from cinnabar at mercury deposits

How to find out if the mercury continues to evaporate in your room?

Test strips to determine vapor of mercury in the room

In specialized stores are sold mercury vapor analyzers. They look like test strips that change color if the mercury continues to evaporate in the house. You need to act according to the instructions.

You can at home make the indicator strips ourselves. This will need:

Filter paper
Iodide potassium
Copper sulfate
Tiosulfate sodium

We make the strips of the indicator for the presence of mercury vapors:

Cut the paper on the strips.
From a copper sulfate, we make a solution and lower the strips into it, take it out, let them dry.
The second liquid in which we lower the strips will be iodide potassium, after it the strips will become brown.
The third liquid - sodium thiosulfate - the stripes will be preneprusted.
Then we rinse the strips in water and dry.
If you want to check if there is an infection in the apartment with mercury, lay out the strips in the room. The coloring of strips in pink says that the room has vapors of mercury.

Now we know that we must not allow the mercury thermometer and other devices with mercury to break, if the device breaks down, you need to apply a lot of effort to remove this place to the smallest remnants of mercury.