Weekend Science - Vinometallurgy
Up until today I thought the best use for cheap wine was to give it to undergrads. It seems Australian CSIRO researcher Ryan Noble has found a better one - wine assisted mineral assays. By crushing rocks and mixing with a glass or two of red wine the organic acids leach out weakly bound metals allowing them to be detected using standard AA techniques. In my mind the real strength of the technique lies in the fact that using the whole bottle isn’t necessary. After all, it’s important to think of the operators*.
On the Vinography post about the same subject the author points out the possibility of leaching silver from the fillings in his mouth. I can’t speak for wine, or for silver, but I know that the mercury in amalgam fillings does leach out when in contact with tea. In a similar fashion, the organic acids in Earl Grey (or any other tea) act as a weak solvent extraction ingredient, increasing the level of mercury in ones breath by orders of magnitude. This was shown to us in a class with a mercury breathalyzer. The tea drinker with fillings registered over 1000 ppm mercury, compared to the class average of 80-120 ppm. The results were never published for fear of reprisal against UBC by the tea tycoons.
Luckily the solution to increased mercury levels from tea drinking is simple- get drunk. Alcohol in your bloodstream forces your liver and kidneys to work harder, and in doing so they process and expel more mercury. This was the topic of a recent thesis at UBC, for which a lot of research was done at Koerner’s Pub. Aside from the obvious benefits of being part of such a study (these research dollars are for what?), the study had particular relevance to the artisanal gold miners who come in contact with very unsafe amounts of mercury. According to the study, the miners who most resisted the effects of mercury poisoning were the ones who drank a lot. All the same, I don’t think encouraging miners to drink for their health will be added to the list of recommendations of the Global Mercury Project.
*Don’t drink and do chemistry. A message from Researchers Against Drunk Analysis.