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Sodium cyanide is an inorganic compound with the formula NaCN. It is a white, water-soluble solid. Cyanide has a high affinity for metals, which leads to the high toxicity of this salt. Its main application, in gold mining, also exploits its high reactivity toward metals. It is a strong base. When treated with acid, it forms the toxic gas hydrogen cyanide:

Applications

Cyanide mining

Sodium gold cyanide

Sodium cyanide is used mainly to extract gold and other precious metals in mining industry. This application exploits the high affinity of gold(I) for cyanide, which induces gold metal to oxidize and dissolve in the presence of air (oxygen) and water, producing the salt sodium gold cyanide (or gold sodium cyanide) and sodium hydroxide:

4 Au + 8 NaCN + O2 + 2 H2O → 4 Na[Au(CN)2] + 4 NaOH
A similar process uses potassium cyanide (KCN, a close relative of sodium cyanide) to produce potassium gold cyanide (KAu(CN)2). Few other methods exist for this extraction process.

Chemical feedstock

Several commercially significant chemical compounds are derived from cyanide, including cyanuric chloride, cyanogen chloride, and many nitriles. In organic synthesis, cyanide, which is classified as a strong nucleophile, is used to prepare nitriles, which occur widely in many specialty chemicals, including pharmaceuticals.

Niche uses

Being highly toxic, sodium cyanide is used to kill or stun rapidly such as in widely illegal cyanide fishing and in collecting jars used by entomologists.

Homicide

In 1986, Stella Nickell murdered her husband Bruce Nickell with sodium cyanide. In order to disguise her being responsible for the murder, she placed several bottles of Excedrin tainted with sodium cyanide on store shelves near her home in Tacoma, WA. Susan Snow, a bank manager living nearby in the same town, died several days later from taking some of the tainted Excedrin.

In 1991, Joseph Meling, a resident of Tumwater, WA, copied Nickell's idea, this time tainting capsules of Sudafed on store shelves near his home to murder his wife and disguise the incident as a mass murder. Meling had forged life insurance in his wife's name totaling $700,000. Meling's wife Jennifer Meling survived the poisoning attempt but two other residents of Tumwater died after taking the tainted Sudafed.