Amalgam (chemistry)

An amalgam is an alloy of mercury with another metal. It may be a liquid, a soft paste or a solid, depending upon the proportion of mercury. These alloys are formed through metallic bonding,[1] with the electrostatic attractive force of the conduction electrons working to bind all the positively charged metal ions together into a crystal lattice structure.[2] Almost all metals can form amalgams with mercury, the notable exceptions being iron, platinum, tungsten, and tantalum. Gold-mercury amalgam is used in the extraction of gold from ore, and dental amalgams are made with metals such as silver, copper, indium, tin and zinc.

  1. ^ Callister, W. D. "Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction" 2007, 7th edition, John Wiley and Sons, Inc. New York, Section 4.3 and Chapter 9.
  2. ^ "Mercury Amalgamation".
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.