Mercuration Mercury, organo- compounds

Kochetkov continued as lecture assistant until 1951, combining this work with research on metalloorganic chemistry in Nesmeyanov s laboratory. He studied organo-mercury compounds, in particular their synthesis by the addition of mercuric chloride to acetylenes. In 1948 Nikolay wrote a thesis and received the Ph.D. degree in chemistry. 

It seems to be certain that the oxynitration reaction in the presence of mercury salts proceeds through the formation of phenylmercuric nitrate. The isolation of phenylmercuric nitrate from a reaction mixture in dilute nitric acid by several authors (Carmack and his co-workers [135], Titov and Laptev [71], and also Bro-ders [124]) favours this view. If an intermediate nitroso compound is formed in the reaction its formation should be ascribed to the reaction between phenylmercuric nitrate and nitrous acid. This view, based on earlier experiments of Baeyer [136], Bamberger [137], Smith and Taylor [137a], has since been confirmed by Westheimer, Segel and Schramm [138], who considered the nitroso compound formed from an organo-mercuric compound to be the principal intermediate product in the Wolffenstein and Boters reaction. 

The RAM II process (Fig. 18.31) developed by IFF is ideally suited for simultaneous removal of arsenic, mercury and lead from contaminated feedstocks, upstream of aromatics complexes or steam-cracking units. Typical results are excellent, less than 3 ppb of each contaminant in the process effluent as threshold limit for analysis, 1 ppb of each as expectation. Mercury removal from a HC cut is not as simple as the same operation from a gas or LPG feed. The very nature of the mercury compounds to be found in such a cut requires a two-step process in which the organo-mercuric species are decomposed into hydrocarbons and... 

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