Applications of Mercury

Mercury is most commonly used in the manufacture of industrial chemicals and in electronic or electrical products. Mercury is also used in thermometers, especially in thermometers that measure high temperatures. More and more gaseous mercury is still used in the manufacture of fluorescent lamps, while many other applications have been gradually eliminated due to health and safety issues, and replaced by Galinstan alloys, which are less toxic but much more expensive. In addition, mercury has the following uses:
1. It can decompose gold from its minerals, so it is often used in gold mines.
2. It is used to make instruments such as barometers and diffusion pumps.
3. Gaseous mercury is used in mercury vapor lamps.
4. It is used to make liquid mirror telescopes. Telescopes that use rotation to form a parabolic shape of liquid as the primary mirror for astronomical observations are one-third the price of ordinary telescopes.
5. Mercury switches, pesticides, in the production of chlorine and potassium hydroxide, preservatives, and as electrodes, batteries and catalysts in some electrolytic equipment.