Aluminium amalgam aluminium and reduce H from water, creating aluminium hydroxide (Al(OH)) and hydrogen gas (H). The electrons from the aluminium reduce mercuric Hg ion to metallic mercury. The metallic mercury can then form an amalgam with the exposed aluminium metal. The amalgamated aluminium then is oxidized by water, converting the aluminium to aluminium hydroxide and releasing free metallic mercury. The generated mercury then cycles through these last two steps until the aluminium metal supply is exhausted. Due to the reactivity of aluminium amalgam, restrictions are placed on the use and handling of mercury in proximity with aluminium. In particular, large amounts
Chemical element whole number. For example, the relative atomic mass of chlorine is 35.453 u, which differs greatly from a whole number as it is an average of about 76% chlorine-35 and 24% chlorine-37. Whenever a relative atomic mass value differs by more than 1% from a whole number, it is due to this averaging effect, as significant amounts of more than one isotope are naturally present in a sample of that element. Chemists and nuclear scientists have different definitions of a "pure element". In chemistry, a pure element means a substance whose atoms all (or in practice almost all) have the