So, a few questions regarding mercury in lamps,
1) If you happen to accidentally break a cold lamp, whether it be Mercury vapor, Fluorescent or whatever, will the Mercury be in vapor form and make the air dangerous? or would it be in some sort of solid form due to being cooled down?
The mercury will be worst case liquid. The pressure at room temperature is very low, plus the mercury gas is heavy, so the cloud wont be that dense will remain close around the spilled mercury.
2) Which lamp type would be considered the most dangerous in terms of mercury? I'd imagine it'd be mercury vapor lamps... But I might be wrong there...
MV and metal halide contain similar amount. The metal halide could be worse, when the mercury becomes a compound with some of the salts, because then it will become likely water soluble.
3) How dangerous is mercury in it's vapor form versus other forms?
Definitely the main toxic form is the vapor and/or its compounds. As a gas it gets quite readily absorbed by lungs, as a compound it could become water soluble, so more readily distributed...
So most dangerous are breakages of hot lamps, then the situation when the mercury gets stirred with the dust (it is then encouraged to evaporate more).
The safest is the amalgam form (in some fluorescents or some MH's), as it is solid, so small surface and strongly held together
The most questionable are the MHs: There you never know, in which form the mercury will be when spilled, if it is some dangerous water soluble compound, or rather safe amalgam. Better treat it as worse, so take precautions against entering the body (dust mask, gloves, washing hands after the cleanup, do the cleanup as quickly as safely possible, store the collected mess in a sealed container robust enough against damage from the sharp glass fragments).
