Silver cyanate is the
cyanate
Cyanate is an anion with the structural formula , usually written . It also refers to any salt containing it, such as ammonium cyanate.
It is an isomer of the much less stable fulminate anion .William R. Martin and David W. Ball (2019): "Sma ...
salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantiti ...
of
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...
. It can be made by the reaction of
potassium cyanate
Potassium cyanate is an inorganic compound with the formula KOCN (sometimes denoted KCNO). It is a colourless solid. It is used to prepare many other compounds including useful herbicide. Worldwide production of the potassium and sodium salts was ...
with
silver nitrate
Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula . It is a versatile precursor to many other silver compounds, such as those used in photography. It is far less sensitive to light than the halides. It was once called ''lunar caustic ...
in aqueous solution, from which it precipitates as a solid.
:
+ \rarr + +
Alternatively, the reaction
:
+ \rarr +
analogous to the reaction used for the industrial production of
sodium cyanate
Sodium cyanate (NaOCN) is a white crystalline solid that adopts a body centered rhombohedral crystal lattice structure (trigonal crystal system) at room temperature.
Preparation
Sodium cyanate is prepared industrially by the reaction of urea wit ...
, may be used.
Silver cyanate is a beige to gray powder. It crystallises in the
monoclinic crystal system
In crystallography, the monoclinic crystal system is one of the seven crystal systems. A crystal system is described by three vectors. In the monoclinic system, the crystal is described by vectors of unequal lengths, as in the orthorhombic sys ...
in
space group
In mathematics, physics and chemistry, a space group is the symmetry group of an object in space, usually in three dimensions. The elements of a space group (its symmetry operations) are the rigid transformations of an object that leave it un ...
''P''2
1/''m'' with parameters a = 547.3
pm, b = 637.2 pm, c = 341.6 pm, and β = 91°. Each unit cell contains two cyanate ions and two silver ions. The silver ions are each equidistant from two nitrogen atoms forming a straight N-Ag-N group. The nitrogen atoms are each coordinated to two silver atoms, so that there are zigzag chains of alternating silver and nitrogen atoms going in the direction of the monoclinic "b" axis, with the cyanate ions perpendicular to that axis.
D. Britton, J. D. Dunitz: ''The crystal structure of silver cyanate''
Acta Crystallogr. (1965). 18, 424-428,
Silver cyanate reacts with nitric acid
Nitric acid is the inorganic compound with the formula . It is a highly corrosive mineral acid. The compound is colorless, but older samples tend to be yellow cast due to decomposition into oxides of nitrogen. Most commercially available nitri ...
to form silver nitrate, carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is tr ...
, and ammonium nitrate
Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is a white crystalline salt consisting of ions of ammonium and nitrate. It is highly soluble in water and hygroscopic as a solid, although it does not form hydrates. It is p ...
.[J. Milbauer: ''Bestimmung und Trennung der Cyanate, Cyanide, Rhodanide und Sulfide'' in Fresenius' Journal of Analytical Chemistry 42 (1903) 77-95, .]
: + + H2O \rarr + CO2 + NH4NO3
See also
* Silver fulminate
Silver fulminate (AgCNO) is the highly explosive silver salt of fulminic acid.
Silver fulminate is a primary explosive, but has limited use as such due to its extreme sensitivity to impact, heat, pressure, and electricity. The compound becomes p ...
References
{{Reflist
Silver compounds
Cyanates