CHEAP DIY Mercury Retort. NO TOOLS REQUIRED. 0.98g Mercury Recovered from the Environment!

I built a functional mercury retort for under $14. The inspiration for this was hearing that artisan gold miners around the world are the largest source of mercury pollution, the second largest source coming from burning coal. I wanted to provide an easy alternative for people who have mercury contaminated gold of separating the metals without burning the mercury off into the environment. I hope this is useful to someone and contributes to the good work us modern day miners are doing to help remove mercury contamination from near our waterways.
0:00 Intro
4:06 Loading gold into the retort
5:11 Opening the retort and a look at the mercury
7:09 Weighing out the recovered mercury and gold
9:19 Conclusion

[@davebean2672]

Love your videos keep them coming. Great job on all the work you do to put them out.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks Dave!

[@lixxxxit]

Excellent simple diy retort design! I'm off to the hardware store to get my pieces now! Thanks man!

[@shimani141]

such a good video, well done retaining all of the weight! excited to see the next video

[@mazuj2]

Very cool! I've never seen mercury covered gold. Very interesting, thanks!

[@user-jr7jo7cg6i]

Very helpful and no matter what the haters say you did a great job. Thx results is what you showed and that what shuts up the rest. Thx so much 👍 appreciated

[@GSProspecting]

Great job all around fam. Learn something new today indeed fam. Gold Squad Out!!!

[@MultigrainKevinOs]

Dude! nice little project, i am super impressed how well that worked and kudos for getting that mercury outta the river too as a bonus! That BC gold is some chonker stuff, yowza !

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks! Yeah I'm glad it worked out as well as it did!

[@raymondcoriz9500]

$15 vs. $200 and it got the job done. Thanks for the great video. I have about 2.5 grams I need to clean. Heavy pans.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks for watching, I'm glad it was useful to you! I'm sure you could make a slighty smaller version with 1/2" pipe as well, and maybe toss the pipe in a fire first to burn off any oil to keep the mercury from beading up like it did for me? Heavy pans.

[@niocalsgreogiro]

First of all I want to thank you for such a fantastic idea. I just built one and works great. The only problem I had was when choosing the iron pipe, since both gas and water pipes I found were galvanized with a nickel or brass coating, and mercury tends to form an amalgam with these compounds (especially when it is heated). That is why, as a preventative measure, I first polished the entire internal surface of the pieces and then let them sit for a day with 20% muriatic acid to finally rinse them with distilled water and baking soda to remove any traces of acid.

[@ChefVProspecting]

Presentation was fine. Thanks for sharing

[@danhodgins4015]

Nice design, looks like it works well. Good topic!

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks Dan. Yeah, this topic is actually quite relevant even if it is seldom talked about. I wanted to put the info out there to help anyone out there who might have a little mercury on their gold and show an easy cheap option to safely remove it from the environment.

[@trylance]

Very interesting. I haven't been out to BC panning yet, so this info is all new to me. thanks

[@MohammedNovalija]

Interesting and wonderful presentation - Thank You for Sharing

[@UtmostOutdoors]

And thank you for watching my friend!

[@SECRETCREEKPROSPECTING1776]

Sweet alternative brother, well explained 😅✌️👊💪👍🇺🇸⚒️⚒️⚒️⚒️

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks 👍

[@bartbley1269]

They used to acidize copper plates and the mercury would stick to the copper plate and they would use the mercury covered plate for gold recovery they were used on dredges in the edmonton area

[@portercrumb8264]

This video is bittersweet for me, in Aus as a kiddo I used to play with mercury cuz I thought it looked like the terminator character. BAD IDEA! I appreciate your safety around mercury so you don’t end up like me. I’m so happy for you and your perfect life. 😢😢😊😢 keep digging upmost

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I want to be like you when I grow up Porter Crumb! PS: Happy Belated Birthday!

[@portercrumb8264]

😊😊😊

[@lagrangiankid378]

Playing with metal mercury is not that dangerous as long as you do it in a ventilated area and wash your hands afterwards. Liquid mercury metal is very stable and poorly absorbed, and therefore relatively safe. It's the mercury vapors and compounds (especially the organic ones, but also many inorganic mercury salts) that are extremely toxic.

[@dodgeit3014]

Good stuff

[@kord530]

Was looking for somthing simple like this. I sniped a couple grams last week that are covered. Was looking for a safe and efficient way to clean my gold. Thanks! 😎

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Glad I could help!

[@MattBroquard]

Cool video, I like how basic and simple it is, I was actually thinking about trying a similar experiment lol👍 Good to know it works! I’ve used mercury before to clean fine Gold and it definitely works!”pretty amazing” It gets frowned upon but when used properly, 100 percent safe!!!

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Matt, So cool to have you comment on one of my videos! I think I found your channel about 3 or 4 years ago during your Astro van gold dredging days. I used to have a 1989 chevy astro van in my early 20's... If you try a similar retort, I suggest maybe try cleaning the factory oil from inside the gas pipe first and it might help with the mercury beading up at the end, but otherwise the thing did do a surprisingly good job!

[@MattBroquard]

Do you think that you can re- use the mercury to recollect Gold- It looked like it collected back into a glob or did it not? -Wanna get into a system for collecting the ultrafines!!!

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I think the mercury can be re-used for sure. So long as you keep collecting it each time, I can's see why you couldn't.

[@greatbasingoldrush]

Good gold video

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks 👍

[@christopherleubner6633]

A lot of mercury is on gold since people used mercury to grab gold. Distilling it off is stupidly simple as shown. The mercury vapor form this small of a still is so little that a passive cooled retort is fine. Save the mercury as its quite htf and valuable. If you want extra credit for your retort you can hewt it very strongly with a graphite insert to make a nuce gold button. Induction heating is the best, propane is the most common and charcoal is cheapest. To evaporate the mercury, red hot is fine. To actually melt the gold its a bright yellow orange heat. ❤

[@firefox2716]

80 Mercury has to reblance its electron charges after going into vaporizing , the electron charges is why it clings to gold. Let me know if the balls of mercury went back to together , sometimes a small amount of battery amp current is applied overnight to re balance recharge the mercury to its normal state of liquid. Great simple retort you made Thanks for showing 🌝

[@UtmostOutdoors]

The mercury balls did go back together. I think the pipe I used had a factory layer of oil on the metal, After burning off that oil, I'm hopeful my next run will have less of that balling.

[@firefox2716]

​@Utmost Outdoors Gas pipe threads have cutting oil sprayed onto them while turning.I know zinc can cause issues. It does,nt take much oil to cause issues. Ok, your mercury electrons stabilized so hope your next run goes well. Have Great Saturday ❤

[@kevinsingel7213]

Use black pipe instead of zinc plated for best Hg recovery. Also be sure to store the retort on water to prevent evaporation of residual mercury in between uses.

[@kevinsingel7213]

PS it’ll always bead up.

[@pjstreasureadventures929]

Thanks for this video! Would rather build this retort than lose my mercury! Much appreciated for this knowledge!

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Glad it was helpful! Not to mention much better for our health when we don't release it into the atmosphere. 😀

[@pjstreasureadventures929]

@@UtmostOutdoors Most definitely! It’s a win-win outcome 😁

[@waynoswaynos]

Nice one Dave, a good and simple retort. I recently distilled my first quantity of Hg, but instead used lab glassware and a little home made vacuum pump to ensure vapours could not escape from any of the joints. What surprised me was how many tiny particles remained and stuck to the glass when I looked at it closely. A lot pushed through with shaking, as you did, then a lot more with water washes. Then finally I distilled some H2S04 to totally clean the remains. That makes HGSO4 which is basically cinnabar and that can be reduced with heat to recover the Hg. It would be good for you to start with a measured amount of Hg, do your extractions, then recover it with your retort to see how much of it got lost in the process. I wonder if Jet Dry or similar would help to recover more?

[@lagrangiankid378]

Yes but HgSO4 is mercury (II) sulfate, cinnabar is HgS which would be mercury (II) sulfide.

[@brucehodge2492]

Very good video. Simple and effective Retort. Did you squeeze off any access mercury before this process?

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thank you Bruce. I didn't squeeze off any mercury, this was just the raw gold as I found it.

[@lagrangiankid378]

This is very cool especially considering how cheaply was made and I'm definitely gonna try it. Is there an easy way to scale it up? I was thinking maybe putting some iron pipe before the elbow so that you have a whole cylinder of stuff to distill but I don't know how efficient would the heating be.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

The most important part it to keep mercury from evaporating into the air, so if you made a larger chamber, you would likely need a longer condenser tube, and perhaps cool that tube with by wrapping a wet cloth around it. Just be careful with the stuff...

[@SanaTeymouri84]

can i retort hgs like this?

[@MRGOLD99.999]

Looks like it worked pretty good but still looks like you have some mercury on your gold it could be the way the camera looks on screen But I bet if you hit that same gold with a torch you'd get the rest of the mercury to burn off

[@markduncan3556]

Very nice setup. I'm going to dispose of the mercury I have at transfer station but I didn't want to lose the gold I have in it. I can do this after I've squeezed out the amalgam then dispose of the mercury. Thanks. The only thing I noticed was you say no tools required, it looks like you cut or had the end of the 24" pipe cut to lay flat in the water bottle? Did you do that or will Home Depot do it for you?

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I cut that myself. It's not necessary, just be careful the tip it fully submerged but not by a lot. When the chamber begins to cool it may want to suck up some water and that would not be good if it made it all the way back to the hot part. For one small batch the tube alone provides enough cooling, but for more, you can use a longer tube and wrap a wet rag around the outside. In my test I weighed everything before and after and lost nothing to the atmosphere, but be careful.

[@s.d.iprospecting4359]

Could the mercury be beading up because it absorbed other metals from the pipe?

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I think it was beading up due to the oil on the pipe. I should have cleaned up the pipe a bit to remove that factory oil residue before using it and I think that would have prevented the beading. We'll see if it does it again next time now that I have cleaned oil from the pipe...

[@rexhavoc5643]

Where can I take collected Hg to safely dispose of it?

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I believe in Calgary you can take it to a hazardous materials drop off area at designated fire halls. The same place you would take used oil, paint, or old mercury filled thermometers. I'm just collecting mine for now.

[@rexhavoc5643]

@@UtmostOutdoors ok thanks. I somehow got the idea from the video there was some value that could be gained.

[@portercrumb8264]

Havoc perhaps value can be obtained by making homemade thermometers or maybe DIY dental fillings. Upmost should make a video about these kinds of idea.

[@lagrangiankid378]

Sell it. One man's garbage is another man's treasure.

[@paullisbeth4952]

My gold is stick inside the dop draht, do you have any idea how to take it out?

[@UtmostOutdoors]

If the gold is stuck inside the cap, you might be able to pry it out with a screwdriver? If not, now that the mercury is gone, you might be able to re melt it in the cap like a crucible, add some Borax as Flux, and pour it out while liquid? Just a thought.

[@paullisbeth4952]

@@UtmostOutdoors ok, I will try it. Tq

[@jukebeck1398]

Next time just coat the inside of your cap with graphite and it won't stick

[@neary2k]

Love the videos man. But as an Irish man, I saw it immediately could you please turn the horseshoe the right side up? It's unlucky to hang it the way it is now.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Will do! Thanks for the reminder.

[@blacklabelonthebedrocks]

Hi! You're totally right about avoiding blowing the mercury up into the air. I also built a retort for this purpose. Similar to yours but a little bit more complicated (short pipe and caps like yours, but a brake pipe for the outlet). The used retort should be stored inside a sealable plastic bag like a ziplock. Be careful when using other metals than iron. Mercury may alloy with most metals (including aluminium). Check this out: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f6PHiqibd56jj5Y That's why airlines only carry mercury under heavy security measures... Best regards from Germany!

[@moekhn]

those beads are amalgams

[@jamesolson4420]

What flux are you using

[@UtmostOutdoors]

No Flux was used. Just boiling off the mercury to be collected by the retort.

[@feraldesign]

Your horseshoe is upside down.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I clearly didn't do my research when I found that thing in the garden! I'll flip it the right way around for the next video!

[@moekhn]

bro you need to have a condenser.. this is very stupid way to do it

[@lagrangiankid378]

If it's stupid but it works then it's not stupid.

[@swedishpsychopath8795]

Now when you have a lot of spare time - maybe we should collect money for you to buy a new drone to start exposing environmental issues at the oil company you used to work for? Environmental stuff is IN these days - so I don't see any problems doing it.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I do have a fair bit of spare time these days... haha! Despite the obvious clear cut open pit mine, the oil company actually ran a pretty tight ship when it came to reporting spills and such. I think my time will be better used if focused on my own gold mining and just sticking to what I can directly control for now. I would love to go camping in the woods up there again one day though... Maybe fly a Canadian flag above my camp this time in view of the camp, haha!

[@ryankosciesza5295]

Why does the gold get covered with mercury?

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Mercury just seems to stick to gold and amalgamate around it... Something about the way the metals react to each other.