School experiment on elements

[Saaz]

Hello,

I want to do an activity with my students where we study some basic properties of some elements of different groups. I'm concerned about some hazards with some of these elements. I work under a simple fume hood.

My concerns are:
- Pure Sodium/lithium: Is it safe to handle at room temperature and standard humidity conditions? Once in stored in mineral oil, how safe is it to keep it in chemical storage?
- Mercury: is it safe to put a couple of drops of mercury in the watch glass at room temperature? I'm mostly concerned about the fumes and the inhalation hazards.
- Noble gases: I saw some small Tesla coil to excite the noble gases (eg powered by a 9V battery); how safe are these tesla coil? Are there some hazards?

I would appreciate any information that you have about it.

Best,
Saaz

[ChenBeier]

Lithium , sodium are safe if stored accordng the regulations. Both develop hydrogen if get wet. Mostly the hydrogen gets ignited, large amount explod and molten metal splashes around and can harm people.

Why you want expose mercury it's poisson. Don't do it.

With the Tesla coil, I don't know what you really want to do. Noble gases are not visible and do no chemical reaction under standard conditions.

[zanderkunze]

Yes, mercury is an extremely toxic substance, if accidentally exposed to a small amount, it can cause serious health problems, I advise you not to expose mercury like that.