23 Aug
2006
23 Aug
'06
4:22 p.m.
I have worked with sulfuric acid in the course of
running a retail battery
store, it's not a big deal, really. Mercury? Yeah, there's some around,
but I haven't found much of a use for it. Lead and lead salts? In car
batteries, for sure...
I saw a label on a car battery which said something like 'Sulphuric Acid
-- Corrosive -- Toxic'. My first thought was that sulphuric acid is not
_that_ toxic. My second thought was that car battery electrolyte would
almost certainly contain disolved lead salts, and would be therefore toxic.
What sorts of stuff would you do with those ingredients anyway?
Well, back then you made your own batteries (including lead-acid
secondary cells). And of course electroplating. Mercury was used for
contacts on relays, induction coil interrupters, timers, spinning disk
motors, and the like.
-tony