ИСТИНА

Mercury and its compounds migrate between environmental components, contaminating water bodies. It poses a danger in aquifer systems: by the action of microbes inorganic mercury converts to its highly toxic forms such as methyl- and dimethylmercury, minor exposures of which have devastating effects on central nervous system. According to the research conducted in the Russian Federation, mercury used for producing consumer items tends to get into residues (29 tons). Almost 11 tons of mercury is released in soil, 4.8 tons is emitted in the atmosphere and 4.9 tons is migrated into waters. Mercury in mercury-containing waste is prone to leaching, that causes its migration into aquifer systems. The conversion of residual mercury compounds to the most stable form - mercury sulfide will reduce the water bodies pollution. To immobilize mercury in this paper, we analyze the reactions in a system containing mercury, sulfur, and glass. Glass is used as a common substance accompanying mercury in solid household waste such as thermometers and/or lamps. To evaluate quantities of mobile mercury compounds compared with its sulfide the respective methodologies were developed, including the examination of dissolution rate of elemental mercury in nitrogen acid in varying concentrations and carrying the series of experiments of indirect titrations using potassium iodide, sodium chloride and direct titration with ammonium rhodanate. As a result, the developed method describes recommended concentrations of the standard solutions and titrated substances. In addition, equations for determination of residual concentrations and the detection limit of Hg2+ ions were described in this work. Reaction masses and reaction products need to be drained and pumped; this study suggests using bentonite for this purpose. Low viscosity allows easily remove suspensions from apparatus and pump them to the dryer. The parameters for the preparation of bentonite-glass-water suspensions were selected, taking into account the possibility of such operations as pumping suspensions with appropriate pumps and pumping them into the dryer. The necessary parameters were such ratios as Tsum. (A mixture of bentonite-glass), Tsum-water, as well as the ratio of the mixture of sulfur-glass, in which the viscosity of the suspension in the Marsh funnel was in the range of 180-300 seconds (this range is required for the pump for pumping the kaolin slurry).