SYMBOL OF MERCURY SKIN

Mercuric sulfide is used to color paints and is one of the red coloring agents used in tattoo dyes. It has since been replaced by safer and more effective agents. In the past, mercurous chloride was widely used in medicinal products, including laxatives, worming medications, and teething powders. Mercuric chloride is used in photography and as a topical antiseptic and disinfectant, wood preservative, and fungicide.

SYMBOL OF MERCURY SKIN

Inorganic mercury salts can be transported in water and occur in soil. Dust containing these salts can enter the air from mining deposits of ores that contain mercury. Emissions of both elemental or inorganic mercury can occur from coal-fired power plants, burning of municipal and medical waste, and from factories that use mercury. Inorganic mercury can also enter water or soil from the weathering of rocks that contain inorganic mercury salts, and from factories or water treatment facilities that release water contaminated with mercury.Īlthough the use of mercury salts in consumer products, such as medicinal products, have been discontinued, inorganic mercury compounds are still being widely used in skin lightening soaps and creams. In its inorganic form, mercury occurs abundantly in the environment, primarily as the minerals cinnabar and metacinnabar, and as impurities in other minerals. Mercury can readily combine with chlorine, sulfur, and other elements, and subsequently weather to form inorganic salts. When mercury reacts with another substance, it forms a compound, such as inorganic mercury salts or methylmercury. Learn about how people are most often exposed to elemental mercury and about the adverse health effects that exposures to elemental mercury can produce.Įlemental mercury is an element that has not reacted with another substance. At room temperature, exposed elemental mercury can evaporate to become an invisible, odorless toxic vapor. If heated, it is a colorless, odorless gas. When dropped, elemental mercury breaks into smaller droplets which can go through small cracks or become strongly attached to certain materials.

It is used in older thermometers, fluorescent light bulbs and some electrical switches.

Methylmercury and other organic compoundsĮlemental or metallic mercury is a shiny, silver-white metal, historically referred to as quicksilver, and is liquid at room temperature.

On the periodic table, it has the symbol 'Hg' and its atomic number is 80. Mercury is a naturally-occurring chemical element found in rock in the earth's crust, including in deposits of coal.

Symbol of mercury