Sodium cyanide is most widely known for its high toxicity. In many public security films, it serves as a necessary medicine for killing people and killing people. I remember that one of the six groups of serious cases killed people with sodium cyanide. Officer Jijie was still on the phone asking the murderer where the sodium cyanide came from. The other side said you'd leave it alone.

So let's start with the toxicity of sodium cyanide.

Sodium cyanide, national list of highly toxic chemicals No. 1688, nickname Shannai, CAS No. 143-33-9, acute toxicity: LD50:6.4 mg/kg (rat oral).

What does LD50 mean here?

This parameter is called semi-lethal dose. It is not one of the most important parameters to measure the toxicity of chemical substances. But it does not mean half-lethal dose. It means, for example, that with 100 rats taking the same dose of sodium cyanide orally, about 50 rats will die. That is, the dangerous dose. This dose does not mean that you will die if you eat it. Maybe you are the other 50 animals that have not died. This dose means the dangerous dose. If you eat so much, there will be a great probability of poisoning, which is very dangerous.

According to a male adult's average weight of 75 kilograms, human oral sodium cyanide LD50_0.48 grams.

That is to say, taking 0.5 grams of sodium cyanide orally is half the probability of poisoning a 75 kg person (a 0.1 ton club member like me is much safer and fatter is not bad).

In Auschwitz concentration camp, the first gas chamber did not use saline gas to kill Jews, but used sodium cyanide. In the middle of the gas chamber, there was a large acid barrel, with a tray of sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide hanging from a rope. When people came in, they pulled the rope, sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide and knocked it over in the acid barrel, releasing a lot of hydrocyanic acid...

But the Nazis found that this method had great drawbacks, many people were not dead or dead, and the low mortality rate was appalling.

This is because although hydrocyanic acid is highly toxic, it is extremely unstable. In summer, about 10 minutes in the air, and in winter, about an hour, hydrocyanic acid will be oxidized to cyanic acid under the action of ultraviolet light, and then decomposed into ammonia and carbon dioxide.

This is also the reason why in my book "Talking about the Safety Accidents on my Chemical Road from University to the present 12 years", I mistakenly poured into the acid waste liquid cylinder into the residual night of sodium cyanide and fell down without running away, but the students who came to rescue were all right. The high concentration of hydrocyanic acid is extremely unstable in the air and will quickly decompose into non-toxic products.

For those who recently said that sodium cyanide encountered this and released hydrocyanic acid, even if the release? In such a humid and hot summer environment, hydrocyanic acid quickly decomposes in the air. As long as you don't go to the front of sodium cyanide, it's basically okay. But now all the officers and soldiers who can enter dangerous distance are chemical prevention officers and soldiers. They know more about chemical prevention than I do.

Please stop spreading panic!

Having said the danger of sodium cyanide.

Now let's talk about the importance of sodium cyanide.

As I said on my microblog a few days ago, one of the most important uses of sodium cyanide is to extract gold.

This is right. Cyanide leaching is the most efficient way to extract gold in the world. China is the world's largest gold producer, so this is a major use.

There are a lot of information in this area, so I won't dwell on it. Next, I'll talk about several other very important uses.

1. biopharmaceutical, sodium cyanide is an important raw material for the synthesis of malonate two ethyl ester. Malonate two ethyl ester is the intermediate of sulfanilamide anti-inflammatory drugs and barbiturate analgesics. It is also the ligand of fruit flavors such as pear, apple, grape and cherry. You're going to drink these tasty drinks, too.

2. Important raw materials for synthetic fibers! At present, synthetic fibers in our country account for 70% of the total textile fibers. Almost all fibers are processed with sodium cyanide as raw material. Can sodium cyanide be used as clothes on your body? I didn't think so.

3. Girls will put a small mirror with them. The most important step in the production process of this mirror is electroplating. There is also sodium cyanide in the electroplating bath. When looking in the mirror to make up and appreciate their beautiful looks, don't forget that there is also a contribution of sodium cyanide.

Don't be afraid because of this. The production of sodium cyanide does not mean that there will be sodium cyanide residue in the end, because the detection is very strict, sodium cyanide itself is not a very stable substance, after washing, it can be zero residue.

Yesterday, a friend of mine asked me if gold was extracted with sodium cyanide. Would it be toxic?

I told him that gold is not poisonous, but it is dangerous to take it orally, even to die, because it is so heavy that it falls into the intestine (mainly the small intestine) causing intestinal spasm, intestinal obstruction, and even intestinal perforation (this will die).

So it can be said that sodium cyanide is an important basic chemical raw material, which is widely used in various fields and closely related to people's lives.

We should correctly understand and understand the danger of sodium cyanide, but we should not blindly fear sodium cyanide itself.

Water can carry a boat and overthrow it. Sodium cyanide can kill people and save people.