Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Another topic about cyanide...

Koala Manuel - 7-7-2016 at 15:09

Hi ladies and gentlemen, I am new here and the thing is, I was trying to follow this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUeooyhD5Xk on making sodium cyanide, the thing is, mine does not drop out of the spoon like his, how do I leach the cyanide out of the spoon? I was thinking in using water as solvent , but I do not know if it will work.

No , I am not a terrorist.
-But every terrorist would say that...
I am telling the truth
-Again, every... :D

Sorry if this is the wrong area and/or if my question is too stupid.

CRUSTY - 12-7-2016 at 19:23

If you're *sure* you actually produced cyanide, water should work as a solvent. Make sure you actually produced it, and if by the correct method (the ferri- and ferro- cyanides are confuse if you're not careful). By the way, none of this makes you at all suspicious of terrorism. The cyanides are very important reagents/reactants in chemistry, and a lot of people ending up making either sodium or potassium cyanide if they get really into chemistry at some point.

Loptr - 12-7-2016 at 19:46

Actually, it does seem that asking about cyanides does stir the government officials.

A man in Virginia Beach walked into either a school or chemical related business asking to get some sodium cyanide. I don't know exactly what happened but I think they chased him out and tried following him. He escaped and last I heard his picture was being sent around by the police to identify him. I know an agency was interested in finding him. This is all so vague in my memory so I will have to look this up tomorrow to see what actually happened. I would hate to be that guy though.

fluorescence - 13-7-2016 at 00:06

I think that would have happened with pretty much any other hazardous compound as well.
The staff won't react to each compound differently. And Cyanide is quite suspicious although I think
from a legal perspective it seems to be a rather grey zone. It might be one of the only real poisons out there.
Not much of a chronical side-effect, not carcinogenic, does not cause allergies etc. Other stuff like lead, nickel, ... can be banned for a lot of things. And then there is the difference between buying or selling it and making it yourself. I think depending on your country there are compounds that can't be sold, there are some that can't be donated and some that are forbidden to even posess. So if you did it yourself I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be allowed to posess KCN or NaCN in contratry to for examle a NiCl2 or something similar.

woelen - 13-7-2016 at 01:13

Cyanide has a strong media-profile, much more so than many other compounds. For this reason, NaCN is very hard to obtain where I live and people really think you are planning something bad if you ask for NaCN (or KCN). Another compound of comparable toxicity, Na2S, can be purchased online without any questions asked. This is simply, because Na2S has not a strong media-profile, most people hardly know what it is and some may associate it with stink-bombs, which are considered a nuisance, but not as real danger.

Coming back to the topic starter. NaCN can be leached out with water, this works quite well, but you have to keep in mind that solutions of cyanide in water are not very stable. They fairly quickly decompose, giving some brown polymeric crap. Purifying cyanides from aqueous solution hardly is possible, you need precipitation from alcoholic solutions.

Cryolite. - 13-7-2016 at 09:50

Chemplayer actually did exactly this procedure on some sort of scale, except they used the potassium salts instead of the sodium ones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8lULpuQvg4 . I would advise adding a few drops of water to the spoon and scraping off the crusty residue with a toothpick. The iron can be removed with a filtration, or a magnet in a plastic bag if you don't have equipment for filtration. The leftover material should be a pretty concentrated solution of sodium cyanide, with sodium cyanide and carbonate as impurities.

If you don't mind me asking, what are you going to do with the obtained cyanide anyways?

careysub - 13-7-2016 at 17:39

Gold reclamation and gold plating are the most popular uses for cyanide.

j_sum1 - 13-7-2016 at 21:10

Quote: Originally posted by woelen  
Cyanide has a strong media-profile, much more so than many other compounds. For this reason, NaCN is very hard to obtain where I live and people really think you are planning something bad if you ask for NaCN (or KCN). Another compound of comparable toxicity, Na2S, can be purchased online without any questions asked. This is simply, because Na2S has not a strong media-profile, most people hardly know what it is and some may associate it with stink-bombs, which are considered a nuisance, but not as real danger.

Coming back to the topic starter. NaCN can be leached out with water, this works quite well, but you have to keep in mind that solutions of cyanide in water are not very stable. They fairly quickly decompose, giving some brown polymeric crap. Purifying cyanides from aqueous solution hardly is possible, you need precipitation from alcoholic solutions.


Wait. You are telling me that NaCN and Na2S are similar toxicity?
I am going to have to rethink my attitude towards one or both of these chemicals. (At my school we use Na2S for a couple of experiments -- with junior high students. Apart from the H2S given off there has not been any presenting issues. Gloves, labcoat, glasses and small quantities and no further worries.)
Back in the home country, sodium cyanide used to be used in baits to kill possums. The accepted wisdom was don't touch it and keep your dogs away from the area on penalty of death (for yourself or the dog.)

Tsjerk - 14-7-2016 at 03:07

I don't understand the mechanism, but for some reason H2S is way more toxic than Na2S... I guess the H-S-H bonds are covalent and not ionic?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17145698, but that still doesn't explain the difference between Na2S and H2S.

[Edited on 14-7-2016 by Tsjerk]

careysub - 14-7-2016 at 06:11

Sodium sulfide is roughly about 100 times less toxic than sodium cyanide (LD50 ~200 mg/kg vs ~2 mg/kg). This places it in US toxicity class II ("moderately toxic"). Also note that LD50 is a *pretty reliably* fatal dose, for safety concerns we are really more interested in the much lower LD01 level or even the threshold fatal dose. The lowest "fatal dose" figure I find is about 50 mg/kg. A teaspoon of it might kill you.

Hydrogen sulfide however, produced by reacting Na2S with an acid IS about as toxic as hydrogen cyanide, with the same fatal target - cytochrome C oxidase inhibition. It is possibly the main hazard of consuming Na2S, endogenous H2S generation, which depends on the amount of stomach acid exposure. The cyanide ion on the other hand is toxic all by itself.

Tsjerk - 14-7-2016 at 06:29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azide

[Edited on 14-7-2016 by Tsjerk]

Koala Manuel - 16-7-2016 at 14:22

Thank you for all the replys, I did it! ^^
Well... the truth is that I did it for fun, I saw the video and tought: "Hey, any dumbass can make cyanide, lets see if it is easy as it seems" , and yes, I am a bored teenager on vacation who has nothing better to do kkkk
Now I am going to research a little more in how to use it for gold extraction and try it

Jstuyfzand - 16-7-2016 at 14:52

Quote: Originally posted by Koala Manuel  
Thank you for all the replys, I did it! ^^
Well... the truth is that I did it for fun, I saw the video and tought: "Hey, any dumbass can make cyanide, lets see if it is easy as it seems" , and yes, I am a bored teenager on vacation who has nothing better to do kkkk
Now I am going to research a little more in how to use it for gold extraction and try it



I always hoped you could take a bucket of scrap and pour cyanide in and leach the gold out, but I dont think its that easy.
Would be good tho, I wonder what metals cyanide dissolves, cant find it online