Fan PL, Batchu H, Chou HN, Gasparac W, Sandrik J, Meyer DM. Laboratory evaluation of amalgam separators. The Journal of the American Dental Association. 2002 May 1;133(5):577-89.
This laboratory evaluation shows that amalgam separators removed at least 96.09 percent of the amalgam in samples with particle-size distribution as specified in ISO 11143. Total mercury concentration and total dissolved mercury concentration in the effluent varied widely for each amalgam separator. Additional research is needed to develop test methods to evaluate the efficiency of amalgam separators in removing small amalgam particles, colloidal amalgam particles and ionic mercury in solution.