Aluminium amalgam Aluminium amalgam Aluminium can form an amalgam in solution with mercury. Aluminium amalgam may be prepared by either grinding aluminium pellets or wire in mercury, or by allowing aluminium wire to react with a solution of mercury(II) chloride in water. This amalgam is used as a chemical reagent to reduce compounds, such as the reduction of imines to amines. The aluminium is the ultimate electron donor, and the mercury serves to mediate the electron transfer. The reaction itself and the waste from it contain mercury, so special safety precautions and disposal methods are needed. As an environmentally friendlier alternative, hydrides
Amalgam (dentistry) problem. This phase has been shown to be the weakest phase in the set amalgam and is subject to corrosion, particularly at the tooth-amalgam interface. In 1962 a new amalgam alloy, called Dispersalloy, was introduced with the addition of a spherical silver-copper eutectic particle to the traditional lathe-cut AgSn particle in a ratio of 1:2. The mixture of these two types of particles is known as admix alloy. The benefits of this alloy was to strengthen the set amalgam and reduce the γ phase (SnHg). The increased copper in the silver-copper eutectic reacted preferentially with tin so that SnHg could