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A metal alloy that is liquid at room temperature

A metal alloy that is liquid at room temperature

You could make your own barometers and thermometers, and not worry about calling in a hazardous materials team to clean up after any accidents. You could simply wipe up the mess with a paper towel.
You wouldn’t have to worry about breathing in toxic mercury fumes, but you could still make neat little electric motors that dip into liquid metal to make their electrical connections.

Suppose further, that the metal would stick to glass, so you could paint it on glass to make your own mirrors. Or that it would stick to paper so you could draw your own electric circuits in it?



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In the photo above, I am holding two small vials of liquid metal. The vial on the right contains gallium, an element that melts at 29.76° Celsius (85.57° Fahrenheit). The vial on the left is an alloy that contains gallium, indium, and tin, and melts at -20° Celsius (-4° Fahrenheit). (Both are available in our catalog.)

The gallium is liquid because I had the bottle in my shirt pocket, next to my warm body. At normal comfortable room temperatures it is a solid.

Because gallium expands when it solidifies (unlike most metals), the vials are only filled half way. To get the solid metal out of the vial, simply warm it up in a cup of hot water until it melts.

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