Thread: Alloy boats and dissimilar metals

Originally Posted by Beaker

Break a mercury thermometer in the bottom to. ......

No don't use anything with copper in it as a barrier agent.

Mercury is total death, you can watch it eat the aluminum before your eyes. Have never forgotton watching it as a science project. Drop of mercury on a sheet of aluminum within a minute white "feathers" of aluminim oxide poke out of the mercury and just keep growing and growing. Teacher wipes the mercury off and where he wiped grows a forest of white plumes.