How Can We Help?
You are here:
< Back

Silver cyanate is the cyanate salt of silver. It can be made by the reaction of potassium cyanate with silver nitrate in aqueous solution, from which it precipitates as a solid.

AgNO3 + KNCO → Ag(NCO) + K+ + NO3

Alternatively, the reaction

AgNO3 + CO(NH2)2 → AgNCO + NH4NO3

analogous to the reaction used for the industrial production of sodium cyanate, may be used.[2]

Silver cyanate is a beige to gray powder. It crystallises in the monoclinic crystal system in space group P21/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.[3]

Silver cyanate reacts with nitric acid to form silver nitrate, carbon dioxide, and ammonium nitrate.[4]

AgNCO + 2 HNO3 + H2O → AgNO3 + CO2 + NH4NO3

See also

References

  1. ^ "3315-16-0 - Silver cyanate, 98% - 45411 - Alfa Aesar". www.alfa.com. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
  2. ^ Willy Kühne (1868), Lehrbuch der physiologischen Chemie (in German)
  3. ^ D. Britton, J. D. Dunitz: The crystal structure of silver cyanate, Acta Crystallogr. (1965). 18, 424–428, doi:10.1107/S0365110X65000944
  4. ^ J. Milbauer: Bestimmung und Trennung der Cyanate, Cyanide, Rhodanide und Sulfide in Fresenius' Journal of Analytical Chemistry 42 (1903) 77–95, doi:10.1007/BF01302741.
Categories
Table of Contents