Mercury silvering Mercury silvering Mercury silvering or fire gilding is a silvering technique for applying a thin layer of precious metal such as silver or gold (mercury gilding) to a base metal object. The process was invented during the Middle Ages and is documented in Vannoccio Biringuccio's 1540 book "De la pirotechnia". An amalgam of mercury and the precious metal is prepared and applied to the object which is then heated, sometimes in oil, vaporizing most of the mercury. The technique is dangerous since mercury is highly toxic, especially in its vapor phase. Mercury silvering can be detected through a variety of
Mercury beating heart changes in surface tension, it is very similar in mechanism to other chemical oscillators such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, which has several intermediate redox reactions driven by the oxidation of malate by bromine. The mercury beating heart was first observed by Carl Adolf Paalzow in 1858. Jöns Jakob Berzelius is reported to have used electrodes. Mercury beating heart The mercury beating heart is an electrochemical redox reaction between the elements mercury, iron and chromium. The reaction causes a blob of mercury in water to oscillate. The observeable reaction demonstrates an effect of a non-homogeneous electrical double layer. It is often