13 Jan
2006
13 Jan
'06
9:18 a.m.
C Fernandez wrote:
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Ok, I get it. I was thinking of it as a pure substance, rather than in
a compound.
Yeah. I believe that the point was that many organomercuric compounds
are significantly more toxic than metallic mercury alone. The canonical
example is usually dimethylmercury. It killed a well known chemistry
professor in 1997 when she spilled just two drops on her latex glove.
Metallic mercury isn't *nearly that toxic*.
Peace... Sridhar
I guess I
don't understand. I thought mercury was mercury.
Chemically, a metal behaves very differently when in a compound.
Sodium metal has a tendency to react violently with water. A chunk
will fizz violently. Ground sodium in cold water will explode, due to
the higher surface area. However, if you compound it with chlorine,
you get ordinary table salt, necessary for life.