The Anonymous Widower

Mercury in the Oil, Gas and Chemical Industries

When I worked years ago at ICI, I had a lot to do with analysing the air in chlorine cell rooms for mercury. In those days when you electrolysed brine to get chlorine and hydrogen, you used a mercury cathode.

We understood the health problems in those days nearly 50 years ago and I would have thought that we had got mercury leaks under control.  But I read an article in The Sunday Times, saying that mercury is a problem with oil and gas extraction.

So I searched the Internet and found this article, from a company who have solutions, or at least know about the problem.

It just shows how we much be very careful.  After all, things like antique barometers which use mercury are under all sorts of regulations, but the worse problem of mercury in oil extraction is not controlled.

Remember too, that one person’s impurity is someone else’s feedstock. I remember an engineer at ICI, who gave a lecture on integrated chemical plants, who said that nothing except pure cold water should ever be discharged from a chemical plant.  He said, that even hot water had a value in heating terms.

October 25, 2010 - Posted by AnonW | World | Environment