Likely a stupid question but I'm a touch of a hypochondriac so these sorts of things occur to me. Could dimethylmercury be produced at home by accident? Like could it inadvertently be created?

I live in a house built in the 40's and the fixtures are as old, including the bathroom mirror. Apparently old mirrors could have mercury amalgam in them, could cleaning them with the wrong thing produce a reaction that would create that dimethylmercury?

I know something about halides is involved in making dimethylmercury and one of the cleaners I use to clean my mirror has magnesium chloride in it, which is a halide right? If there were mercury in the mirror could it react and produce dimethylmercury? Or does the production of such a thing require a more intricate process, heat, pressure, other chemicals, etc?

I watched a YouTube video about a scientist who died of dimethylmercury poisoning, and it kind of spooked me. 

There are many different kinds of mercury amalgam, so you'll have to specify. Even so, it may depend on environmental factors; after all if it were only mercury, another metal, and an alkali halide involved, where would the carbon come from?

Don't worry. These compound can only obtained by Grignard Reaction. Mercury is still a noble element and will not react so fast with others.

On 8/18/2020 at 12:07 AM, Arkansan said:

Likely a stupid question but I'm a touch of a hypochondriac so these sorts of things occur to me. Could dimethylmercury be produced at home by accident? Like could it inadvertently be created?

I live in a house built in the 40's and the fixtures are as old, including the bathroom mirror. Apparently old mirrors could have mercury amalgam in them, could cleaning them with the wrong thing produce a reaction that would create that dimethylmercury?

I know something about halides is involved in making dimethylmercury and one of the cleaners I use to clean my mirror has magnesium chloride in it, which is a halide right? If there were mercury in the mirror could it react and produce dimethylmercury? Or does the production of such a thing require a more intricate process, heat, pressure, other chemicals, etc?

I watched a YouTube video about a scientist who died of dimethylmercury poisoning, and it kind of spooked me. 

The scientist in question was handling a laboratory-grade compound, which is off the charts compared to what a non-chemist might be exposed to. At the time, the standard safety protocol she followed wasn't sufficient but, obviously, things have been tightened since then.

Edited January 2, 20214 yr by StringJunky

Why are you cleaning the back of your mirror, instead of the glass side ?

35 minutes ago, MigL said:

Why are you cleaning the back of your mirror, instead of the glass side ?

Sounds like something my mother would do... she misses nothing.