Mercury price
Table of Contents
Mercury price graphs and tabulations
The mercury price is currently less than one cent per gram. Despite this, it is a raw material where you have to look beyond just the price. It has to be transported securely and these costs are added to the actual price as well. We will show you this is in graphs and tabulations of mercury.
When you add up everything, you can see it rise to 50 to 100 euro per kilo. It depends quite a bit on the scale at which you buy it. The more you buy, the lower the price, which is the case with almost all raw materials.
It is a raw material that you often find in old thermometers. But it is also used a lot more nowadays in industrial applications.
Dentists also use it in small amounts when applying different kinds of fillings. And it can be used in quartz, to isolate the gold. Next to that, you can find it mostly in batteries and bug sprays.
It is a raw material that has decreased in value a lot over the last years. That is not s t range, because we have been using it a lot less. We have found a lot of health risks attached to the use of mercury when in large quantities. Last year around the same time, mercury cost about 17 cents per gram, whereas it is around 1 cents per gram today.
How do we calculate the mercury price?
The mercury price can be determined by a couple of factors. One of the biggest factors being supply and demand. Currently we have an oversupply of mercury, which lowers the price.
It is a raw material that is used in many things, but in very small quantities. Too large quantities cause health risks and this is why the price keeps decreasing.
Because it can be such a dangerous material, companies are looking for alternatives to replace mercury. We can see this in our batteries, which are using more and more lithium nowadays.
Globally, more restrictions are being put on the use and import of mercury. In Europe, for example, it is not allowed to import items that contain over 95% mercury. The pure raw material can not be transferred in theory and there are fines connected to doing so.
We do see that labs get this imported though, because they usually have an exemption. But there are strict rules to follow anyhow.
Mercury production countries
It is unclear which countries produce mercury, because it is illegal in a lot of countries. Not just because it can cause health risks in pregnant people, but also healthy people.
We do know that Africa uses most of this raw material. So, we suspect that they will have a pretty large production, but there are no certain figures to base this on.
The production of mercury is one that does not come without health risks. As the substance has been proven to cause many medical problems when coming into contact with it, it is not without risk to subtract it.
Facts about the raw material mercury
1: Mercury used to be used a lot in lamps.
2: In an old-fashioned thermometer there is a part mercury to measure the temperature with. Nowadays it is not that usual anymore.
3: In the medical field, this raw material is used for measuring volumes and volume changes throughout the body.
4: It used to be used a lot in batteries.
5: When you get a filling at a dentist’s office, chances are that it contains a small amount of mercury.
6: At around 1500 B.C., mercury was present on earth and perhaps even before that. This has been proven by drawing in ancient Egyptian tombs.
7: In the 18th and 19th century, it was used to separate animal skin, so you could be left with only the fur.
8: This raw material can be found in old pumps with a low gas pressure.
9: On earth, the raw material can only be found in the shape of drops, after which you can make it a powder or liquid.
History of mercury
The mercury price arose only around the 18th century, all the while the raw material itself dates back to 1500 before Christ. It was discovered in Egypty, but the history books tell us that it also appeared a lot in the Indies and China.
The Chinese population used to think that you became immortal when consuming mercury. It has been debunked pretty quickly, after the first emperor seemed to have died of a too large amount of it. In the Chinese waters they later found a huge amount of mercury, after a lot of people had ingested it back then.
People also used to think that you could make gold out of mercury. The modern scientists thought that they could combine lead with mercury to create gold. This has never been proven and tested much more later on, but even then, it was deemed impossible.
From the 18th century onward, it was used to make felt and fur. This was stopped pretty quickly too, because people started getting brain damage as a result of wearing and using this felt and fur.
Where can you buy mercury?
The price of mercury varies from country to country and you can officially not really buy mercury anymore. This is, because the raw material itself is prohibited in the EU since 2018.
Trading in this raw material is also forbidden. There are products in which you will find mercury though. Take, for example, old-fashioned thermometers. You could break these to gain liquid mercury. This is legal, because it only contains a small percentage.
You are not meant to take mercury in its purest form out of things. It is an extremely dangerous material, that you should not try to come into contact with. Next to that, in the past it has been proven to cause brain damage as well. This is why they always wear gas masks in labs when working with this substance.
