PURIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF MERCUROUS HALIDES

Mercurous halides are extremely insoluble in most organic and inorganic solvents. This makes members of this class of compounds very difficult to purify by recrystallization from solution. The conventional directional freezing and zone melting methods also fail because all the mercurous halides decompose into the respective mercuric halide and mercury metal on melting. For this reason, we have developed a purification method based on repeated sublimation carried out in a hermetically sealed vessel. The materials prepared by this technique were analyzed following the purification. Metal contamination could be reduced below 10 ppm. Purified feed stock was found quite suitable for crystal growth. © 1990.