Fluorescent Lamp Recycling - Mercury Containment

Mercury Containment

When discarding a fluorescent tube, the main concern is the mercury, which is an important pollutant. One way to avoid releasing mercury into the environment is to combine it with sulfur to form mercury sulfide, which is insoluble in water. One advantage of sulfur is its low cost. The reaction is shown with the equation:

Hg + S → HgS

The easiest way to combine sulfur and mercury is to cover a group of fluorescent tubes with sulfur dust and break them; when the glass is put into a bag to continue with the reaction, the mercury will combine with sulfur without any other action. The glass can be recycled where an appropriate facility exists. A quantity of 25 kg of dust sulfur is enough for 1000 tubes.