It can poison. Symptoms include headache, nausea, vomiting, fever, etc., and in severe cases, even coma or insanity.
I. Mercury is liquid at room temperature and has a color like silver, so it is commonly known as "mercury". It is widely found in nature, and mercury is present in the air, soil and water in our daily life.
1. It is generally believed that inhalation of high concentrations of mercury vapor (> 1.0 mg / m3) for a short period of time (> 3 to 5 hours) can lead to acute mercury poisoning. Common symptoms include headache, nausea, vomiting, fever, etc. In severe cases, symptoms such as coma or mental disorder may even occur.
Second, whether breaking a mercury thermometer can lead to mercury poisoning:
1. Simply put, mercury poisoning is possible.
2. According to the report of the project on mercury-containing products and wastes in the medical environment conducted jointly by the United States and China in 2007, if all the mercury evaporates from a broken mercury thermometer, the mercury concentration in the air of a room 15 m2 in size and 3 m in height can reach 22.2 mg / m3, which is higher than the maximum permissible concentration of 0.01 mg / m3 as stipulated by the national regulations.
3. This is only an extreme case, in reality, the mercury thermometer broken mercury will not all instantly evaporate, the room can not be airtight. But we should also pay enough attention, especially if there are pregnant women and children at home.
4. A professor at the Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who has been involved in mercury research for more than a decade, accidentally broke two mercury thermometers in his bedroom one day. Before opening the window to ventilate the room, the professional moved the instrument for measuring mercury concentration into the bedroom and found that it was "1,000 times higher than the concentration of mercury in the outdoor atmosphere.
Three, what to do if you break a mercury thermometer;
1. Evacuate all people and animals, open doors and windows (very important!) , avoid anyone passing by from the mercury spills;
2, don't let children help you clean up;
3, if the mercury spills on smooth surfaces such as wood, linoleum or polished furniture, it is easier to clean up;
4, if the mercury spills on the carpet, curtains, padding, or other surfaces that are prone to absorbing mercury, then we need to throw out the contaminated. Of course, just cut out the contaminated area and throw it away.
Four, do not do:
1, do not use a vacuum cleaner: vacuum cleaner to blow mercury into the air, accelerating the volatilization of mercury;
2, do not use a broom: broom will break up the mercury, mercury ball will roll around, difficult to clean;
3, do not pour mercury into the sewer: this will pollute the environment;
4, do not wash Clothes that have come into contact with mercury: this will contaminate the washing machine and may pollute the water environment. So please just throw away the clothes that have come into contact with mercury;
5. If your shoes are contaminated with mercury, don't wear them again: walking around in contaminated shoes will expand the contaminated area.
Fifth, hand to teach you to clean up the broken mercury thermometer:
1, put on rubber or latex gloves;
2, first of all, use a paper towel to carefully pick up those broken pieces of glass, and with a sealed bag;
3, for the larger particles of mercury, use cardboard to carefully collect. Pay special attention to the fact that mercury particles roll very quickly on smooth floors, so please check the entire floor carefully in case you "miss" something;
4. For smaller mercury particles, it is recommended to collect them carefully with a dropper and wrap them in paper towels before placing them in a Ziploc bag;
5. For those even smaller mercury particles that are hard to see, you can use shaving cream applied to a small brush, a little bit of sticky, or tape. A little bit of sticky, or tape sticky, and then finally put the small brush and tape together into a sealed bag;
6, if possible, you can also use sulfur powder sprinkled on the mercury flow through the place. Sulfur will turn from yellow to brown (mercury sulfide) when it touches the mercury, and the mercury sulfide will not volatilize into the air to affect your health, and it will also facilitate cleanup.
Six, the room when the mercury can evaporate clean
It is recommended to ventilate at least 24 hours before entering. If you find any physical discomfort, seek medical attention.
Leakage treatment:
1, the widespread use of thermometers sphygmomanometers and other devices caused by mercury easily contaminated indoor and other environmental issues, indoor broken mercury thermometer, do not panic, you can immediately break the visible broken beads of mercury with a piece of paper (due to the cohesive force of mercury is very large, the use of cotton swabs can not be stained with mercury, which is extremely unscientific, irresponsible statement) bracketed up and put into the sealed bottle of water! Inside, if there are tiny mercury beads can be pushed together with a piece of paper, the mercury will automatically gather into small balls, and then collected.
2, in order to be safe, in the case of some simple chemicals can be used to wipe the mercury contamination of the ground to completely eliminate mercury contamination. And never use sulfur powder to cover the method, because it is difficult to combine mercury and sulfide at room temperature, and can not remove the mercury contamination. In order to completely remove mercury contamination, you can use iodine vapor fumigation method to fumigate the room several times, until the copper iodide test paper does not change color. Experiments have proved that the daily leakage of mercury can be used in the family commonly used transparent tape to stick up and collect, the effect is better than a piece of paper, the occurrence of thermometer sphygmomanometer mercury leakage can be used to deal with this method.
Reference:
Baidu Encyclopedia - mercury "leakage treatment"