Uses of Hydrogen Cyanide...?

[RyanJ]

Hi everyone.

 

Recently reading a topic that was asking how you would make Hydrogen Cyanide (Among other things) and of corse there was no reply as I would have expected.

 

HCN' date=' I refuse to tell you.

[/quote']

 

I was just wondering why would you need that stuff anyway? Does it do anything interesting besides kill things?

 

And no I'm not asking how you make it, anything that dangerous should be left to the professionals

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[raivo]

Aqueous solutions of alkali cyanides can dissolve gold and are used for gold plating. Its also important intermediate in organic synthesis, for example to make nitriles. There are more uses but these are first to remember.

 

Alkali metal cyandies are used instead of HCN whenever possible because HCN due of its volatility is much more dangerous.

[DV8 2XL]

Alkali metal cyanides are in fact used in many plating processes, including Silver, Copper, Tin, Cadmium, Zinc, and alloy baths such as Brass. NaCN in solution with NaOH is a popular and effective working solution for electro-cleaners as well. However aqueous CN processes are scheduled for elimination by various international environmental treaties.

 

HCN, the gas, is still used for fumigation against pests in buildings.

[insane_alien]

its pretty deadly stuff wherever its used

[akcapr]

I think you can make it from oxidizing ammonia.

[woelen]

I think you can make it from oxidizing ammonia.

No, when you oxidize ammonia, then you obtain nitrogen gas and water, or even nitrogen oxide(s) and water. Btw, oxidizing ammonia is not easy at home for the average home chemist, it requires quite some apparatus and a good catalyst.

 

Indeed, I want to suggest everybody over here not to play with HCN, KCN, or NaCN unless you REALLY REALLY know what you are doing. This stuff is a lethal poison . Cyanides are not easily obtained by the general public and there is a very good reason for that.

[jdurg]

Even if you don't ingest a lethal dose, the sublethal doses of cyanides are nasty as well. (Had to do a chemical inventory of my college my freshman year as part of my work study program. Spent a LOT of time down in the damp, musty chemical supply room where the cyanides and thiocyanides, and cyanates were stored. The smell of bitter almonds was pretty intense, and after a few hours down there in the poorly ventillated room I had a VICIOUS headache that lasted for a few days and had the energy to do nothing. Shortly after my exposure, high powered ventillation fans were installed in the room to ventillate all the gases that had accumulated. The stuff is nasty stuff that should not be toyed with).

[RyanJ]

Even if you don't ingest a lethal dose, the sublethal doses of cyanides are nasty as well. (Had to do a chemical inventory of my college my freshman year as part of my work study program. Spent a LOT of time down in the damp, musty chemical supply room where the cyanides and thiocyanides, and cyanates were stored. The smell of bitter almonds was pretty intense, and after a few hours down there in the poorly ventillated room I had a VICIOUS headache that lasted for a few days and had the energy to do nothing. Shortly after my exposure, high powered ventillation fans were installed in the room to ventillate all the gases that had accumulated. The stuff is nasty stuff that should not be toyed with).

 

So you couls say find anyhting with the word "Cyanide" in it and go the other way then

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[jdurg]

Really, if you want to know what cyanide gas smells like, take a whiff of super glue. While it's not the same thing, it's structurally pretty similar as super glue is made of cyanoacrylate which has the cyanide group on there. The smell is about as close as you want to get to smelling actual cyanide gas.

[woelen]

So you couls say find anyhting with the word "Cyanide" in it and go the other way then

 

Cheers' date='

 

Ryan Jones[/quote']

No, there are quite some compounds, with 'cyanide' in it, which are very nice and interesting compounds.

 

I myself do a lot of experiments with yellow potassium ferrocyanide and red potassium ferricyanide. Better names for these are potassium hexacyanoferrate (II) and (III). These salts form colorful complexes with almost everything and also have very interesting properties in photography. I even let my children play (under supervision) with dilute solutions of these, because they are essentially non-toxic and allow some nice coloring reactions with dilute iron salts. The cyanide in the hexacyanoferrate ions [Fe(CN)6](4-) and [Fe(CN)6](3-) is so strongly bound to the iron core, that it only is released under quite forcing conditions and under normal use this cyanide is not released.

 

Another very interesting compound is sodium thiocyanate or potassium thiocyanate. Very cheap and easy to obtain and shipped internationally without any restriction. These also are low-toxicity chemicals, but again they have interesting redox properties and form interesting complexes. I once made someone do by mixing a solution of this with a solution of FeCl3 and putting a bunch of this on the floor. It really looks like blood , but in reality it only is slightly toxic (of course you should not drink it or wash yourself with it).

 

Sodium cyanate and potassium cyanate also are fairly innocuous and are even less toxic than the thiocyanates. They simply decompose to ammonium ion, water and carbon dioxide under even very mild conditions.

 

Only free cyanide, cyanogen and cyanogen halides are incredibly toxic. The cyanates and also the organic cyanides (e.g. acetonitrile) are much less toxic.

[akcapr]

Dont apple seeds contain cyanide in them? If its the acid perhaps you could distill it from there or something.

[RyanJ]

Dont apple seeds contain cyanide in them? If its the acid perhaps you could distill it from there or something.

 

 

I've eaten apple seeds in the past and nothing bad has happened so either there is not much there or none at all

 

The real question should be why would you want that stuff? Unless you plan on being interogated...

 

I heared there was a leak of this at my school once, they closed off the whole place and the fire brigade cam ein and had to put some stuff in the air to neutraise it, not even shure if its true though but it sounds pretty nasty stuff.

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[akcapr]

Ya I heard seeds have very little in em, but perhaps why they taste kinda tart. And they did a similiar school close-off to remove some like ruptured Bromine or something. Turns out very few schools are still allowed to have Br for chemistry.

[RyanJ]

Ya I heard seeds have very little in em, but perhaps why they taste kinda tart. And they did a similiar school close-off to remove some like ruptured Bromine or something. Turns out very few schools are still allowed to have Br for chemistry.

 

I know our school has none now thanks to one stupid kid who stole a small flask of the stuff, tripped and sent the stuff splashing all over the school yard - took them a few days to get rid of it all buton the plus side we had a few days off (I didn't miss chemistry so I did not care )

 

I'm shure there is a huge list of things that schools can and cant' have for security reasons though, doing AS levels, we are allowed to use a greater veriety of chemicals that we were not allowed to before. For example we used quite a few Barium compounds last week, testing their solubility, and as far as I know most barium salts are quite toxic... lucky Barium Sulphate is not soluable too

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Joens

[jdurg]

Apple seeds, like peach pits and some other fruit 'seeds', contain an organic cyanogen called amygdalin. Amygdalin is a glucoside which is broken down by various enzymes and hydrochloric acid into numerous compounds, one of which being hydrogen cyanide. In many cases, such as apricot and peach pits, the enzymes needed to break down the amygdalin are also present but in different cells. So if the whole pit is digested or 'mushed' in the stomach, the reactions occur and HCN gets released. For apple seeds, you need to eat quite a few of them in order to start feeling the effects. But if you took a pound of apples and ate all the seeds after chewing on them, you'd get pretty ill.

[olmpiad]

Ya I heard seeds have very little in em, but perhaps why they taste kinda tart. And they did a similiar school close-off to remove some like ruptured Bromine or something. Turns out very few schools are still allowed to have Br for chemistry.

 

The tart taste of mustard is also good example of a way that it makes things tart. I believe that it is a thiocyanate in mustard however.

[Hephaestus]

HCN is used to synthesise nitriles from aldehydes, and is available for extraction from many commonly existing plants in the form of a 0.1% solution.

 

From a very famous book of 1911. Do not try any of this...

 

"veterinary surgeons frequently employ it as a stimulant to animals in danger of death during anaesthesia. It is used in therapeutics on account of its depressing effect on sensory nerve-endings. Thus, dilute solutions (about 1 in 20) may be applied to the skin to relieve ittiration and itching in such conditions as lichen and urticaria. Taken internally its action exerted on the stomach is especially usefule in gastrodynia, the vomiting of pregnancy, and other forms of vomiting."

 

Also used at the time to treat coughs.

 

Dose - 0.1 to 0.4 mL

 

Stronger HCN, 4% soln "is employed chiefly for poisoning animals. It is seldom used in medicine."

[Hephaestus]

May we please dedicate this thread to my colleague, friend and former fellow student who decided to access the cyanides at work and end his depression earlier this month.

 

God rest his soul.

 

Security has since been increased...

[Tartaglia]

Hephaestus, The same thing happened to my flatmate's PhD supervisor when I was a student. Very sad

[bob000555]

No' date=' when you oxidize ammonia, then you obtain nitrogen gas and water, or even nitrogen oxide(s) and water. Btw, oxidizing ammonia is not easy at home for the average home chemist, it requires quite some apparatus and a good catalyst.

 

Indeed, I want to suggest everybody over here not to play with HCN, KCN, or NaCN unless you REALLY REALLY know what you are doing. This stuff [i']is [/i]a lethal poison . Cyanides are not easily obtained by the general public and there is a very good reason for that.

ammoni is sly oxdised with platnium qauz but it contains no Cn

[woelen]

ammoni is sly oxdised with platnium qauz but it contains no Cn

Please use normal spelling, punctuation, and grammar!! Take a little more time to write down your posts.

[bob000555]

Please use normal spelling, punctuation, and grammar!! Take a little more time to write down your posts.

 

srry i typed that at 1 in the morning...what i ment to say it that amonia is esaly oxidised with platinum gauze as a catilist