Question

For transportation of \[mercury\], a container made up of which materials is used?

Answer 1

Hint: Some metals are not stored or transported in the same kind of containers used for other metals. This is due to their reactivity with other metals or reacting the material of the container or ability to form amalgams.

Complete answer:
For the transportation of \[mercury\] containers made up of either \[iron\] or \[platinum\] are used. The metal \[iron\]is used extensively for this as the \[platinum\] is expensive whereas \[iron\] is easily available and cheaper than the \[platinum\]. Also \[mercury\] is a very reactive element. It’s only with the concentrated acids that the \[mercury\] dissolves. It has a widespread use in thermometer, paint pigments etc. it dissolves with gold, zinc and other metals but does not react with \[iron\] and therefore comes in handy for transportation.
Now let us understand what amalgams are.
Amalgams are the alloys of \[mercury\] with other metals. The metal can be in any state that is liquid, solid or in paste form depending upon the proportion of \[mercury\]
We must also understand why \[mercury\] doesn’t form an amalgam with \[iron\]. The reason is stated below.
During the amalgam formation the metal ion is made to reduce into the metal atom first and then this is then solvated by \[mercury\] atom to form an amalgam. So \[mercury\] has to solvate \[iron\] atoms by incorporating in the iron lattice which is very difficult as iron is very stable. The stability of the \[iron\] is due to its electronic configuration which does not allow the transition metal \[mercury\] to form an amalgam with \[iron\].

Note:
An amalgam has many uses in our day to day life as well as commercial uses. For example the dental filling used to fill cavities due to tooth decay, \[gold - mercury\] amalgams are used in extraction of gold from ore etc.