Amalgam (chemistry) with copper. A nitric acid solution of salts under investigation is applied to a piece of copper foil, and any mercury ions present will leave spots of silvery-coloured amalgam. Silver ions leave similar spots but are easily washed away, making this a means of distinguishing silver from mercury. The redox reaction involved where mercury oxidizes the copper is: Dental amalgam has been studied and is generally considered to be safe for humans, though the validity of some studies and their conclusions have been questioned. Amalgam (chemistry) An amalgam is an alloy of mercury with another metal, which may be a
Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam the element's physical properties. Al-Rāzī mentions the following chemical processes: distillation, calcination, solution, evaporation, crystallization, sublimation, filtration, amalgamation, and ceration (a process for making solids pasty or fusible.) Some of these operations (calcination, solution, filtration, crystallization, sublimation and distillation) are also known to have been practiced by pre-Islamic Alexandrian alchemists. In his "Secretum secretorum", Al-Rāzī mentions the following equipment: Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam Alchemy and chemistry in Islam refers to the study of both traditional alchemy and early practical chemistry (the early chemical investigation of nature in general) by scholars in the medieval Islamic world. The word "alchemy"