How does mercury conduct heat?

I’m writing a steampunk / cyberpunk story and I was researching mercury in its various forms. To quote Wikipedia, “Mercury is a heavy, silvery-white metal. As compared to other metals, it is a poor conductor of heat, but a fair conductor of electricity.”. Does this mean that mercury does not retain heat? Does it reflect heat? What happens when mercury and heat are combined / presented to each other? Because mercury is a liquid metal, I imagine it just doesn’t absorb heat very well… I’m asking because in the story, I wrote something called ‘moldable steel’. The base compound is steel, but to make it flexible, it has to be mixed with a kind of looser metal; and because the steel is used in a kind of prosthetics (as well as other areas), I’m wondering if because it is a ‘poor conductor of heat’, would it be safe to use in prosthetics? I want to make it as realistic as possible.

“Poor conductor of heat” means that mercury does not pass heat easily.

Imagine you have a hot object up against some material, and then a colder object on the other side of that piece of material. If the material is a good conductor of heat, heat from the hot object will pass to the cold object quickly, allowing it to heat up significantly before heat is dissipated to the environment.

If the object is a poor conductor of heat, or a good thermal insulator, the cold object will not heat up much. Note that mercury is still a decent thermal conductor; it’s just worse than other metals. Metals are in general good conductors of heat.

Good insulators include things like wood, silica aerogel, air, and vacuum. This is why thermoses have a vacuum jacket.

As for why, consider that heat transfer occurs in three ways. Temperature measures the average, random kinetic energy of molecules in a material. This energy can be transferred from a hot object to a cold one (but not vice versa; see the 2nd law of thermodynamics).

One way is by conduction: nearby molecules bump into each other and transfer energy. This form of heat transfer occurs quickly in solids, but also occurs to a lesser degree in liquids and gases. This is why Hg is a poor conductor of heat relative to other metals.

The second is by convection, which occurs in fluids (liquids and gases). This involves the movement of hot fluid rather than direct transfer of kinetic energy.

The third is by radiation. Hot objects emit black body radiation, which for objects considered warm by humans is usually in the infrared. This electromagnetic radiation (light) can be absorbed by other materials, which heat up as a result. Radiation is the only mode of heat transfer in a vacuum, which is why vacuums are good insulators.

That was kind of a convoluted explanation, so see the link below for more.

Anyways, mercury is not a great choice for prosthetics. For one, it forms liquid alloys – amalgams – that are moldable with several elements (silver, gold, zinc, plus more metals), but as far as I know, not with iron/steel. Secondly, mercury is toxic. While some amalgams harden and lock up the mercury fairly safely (such as dental amalgam, used to fill teeth), keeping it in liquid form means that it is likely to release toxic mercury vapor. Finally, mercury is an extremely dense element – lead will float on it. Generally you want to make prosthetics lightweight.

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