Sodium Cyanide Quality test

Dear All

My name is Mr.Sakda, I have a business about NaCN trading. (Manufactured by Imperial Chemical Corporation (ICC), Taiwan)
Yesterday, one of my customer who do the gold mine business in Myanmar complain me about the product quality.

He told me my product have lower quality than pass, the good quality must have a strong smell.
Also, he change to use the product from Tongsue, Korea, and inform me it have more quality than ICC.
I have no idea about that.

Please teach me, what is the significant NaCN with good quality?

Additionally, he inform me he test the quality by AgNO3 tritation.
He got the Cyanide solution and tritate by AgNO3.
He still inform me the value of good quality is 2 (i don't know what is the unit) and indicator was change to dark pink (Salmon pink)
Is it correct ?

Do you know the purity (in %) of the NaCN you're selling? The 0.1N silver titration, using potassium iodide as an indicator and titrating it to turbibity (cloudiness), is fairly standard and I've used it 100's of times. If the % results are low in this test, this could be due to one, or both, of 2 things: (1) The NaCN itself is truly not of acceptable purity, and/or (2) The NaCN contains moisture.

In your part of the world, the humidity is quite high. I would guess that (2) is the main problem and the customer isn't drying the sample before analyzing it. You can test this by weighing a small sample, drying it slowly and gently, at a fairly low temperature, and then re-weighing it.

I am wondering why your customer is smelling sodium cyanide to determine the quality? Is that not dangerous?

yar said:

I am wondering why your customer is smelling sodium cyanide to determine the quality? Is that not dangerous?

Click to expand...

No but to me unpleasant, it smells of almonds, be aware there are many people who cannot smell it all around 40% of the population if I remember the figure correctly. If cyanide is left as it is not mixed with acids, deadly,or other chemicals it's fairly safe, please don't ingest it as your body digestion system is acid based so it will kill you.
As with all chemicals knowing exactly what it is and the hazards that accompany it let's you decide on the safe ways of handling and or testing it, smelling many chemicals is to be strongly advised against as either deadly, dangerous or simply stupid practice.

Thank you Nick for clearing that up.

Maybe I'm living in my own little world but it seems kind of odd to me that someone selling this stuff has no idea of what he has or how to check the quality. It is Cyanide right? I have to wonder what else you don't know about it. Seems to be in the wrong hands.

1) The link below should answer pretty much all relevant questions on cyanide titration.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=16637&p=168140&hilit=cyanide+titration#p168124

2) Regular titration at different points in the cyanidation process is highly recommended for a number of reasons:
a) Quality control. I have experienced poor quality cyanide here in Indonesia in the past (there is a distinct financial advantage in "cutting" high quality product - the same as with drug dealers [I hear]). I will not be doing any cyaniding in future without an initial titration quality check.
b) Plotting regular titrations during the course of leaching will tell you when your "end point" in chemical reaction has been reached. There is little point in continuing further leaching after this. Most small operators here leach for a fixed period (eg 8hrs, 24hrs, etc) irrespective of how long it takes to actually complete.
c) Once you've extracted your gold from your pregnant leach, a titration will tell you how much additional cyanide you need to add to your spent leach to get it back to initial leaching strength/concentration. This recycling will eliminate the problem of how to dispose of waste cyanide.
d) Recycling can be done a number of times. But when the leach gets too polluted, the cyanide can be regenerated. This needs know-how and care, so I will not expand on this.

Dear All

Thank you for your suggestion.
My NaCN have 98% purity in solid form.

I feel wonder when i saw my Chiness customer keep it to smell and inform me The good NaCN must have strong smell. I don't know how is it relate?

I will try to test follow your suggestion

Hope everybody will happy

Sakda