Show THE TWO CYANIDES for twenty years says the engineering and mining journal potassium cyanide has been the distinctive chemical of the process to which it gave a name but for three years past the equivalent salt of sodium has almost driven potassium cyanide from the metallurgical field manufacturers began by selling a double salt of sodium cyanide and potassium cyanide having a content equivalent to per cent acy but composed of both nacy and acy in any proportion up to 95 per cent sodium cyanide when mine managers became aware of the fact they demanded a pure sodium cyanide it contained equivalent to over per cent potassium cyanide and by the sodium salt they were able to save using in cost of transport the question has arisen whether sodium cyanide is equivalent now to potassium cyanide in the power to extract gold and silver from their ores prom a physicochemical chemical point of view that is considering the laws obeyed by weak eions and granting that the radical is the active one the pure sodium cyanide should be much more effective than the so called double salt weight for weight in that the total effective solvency exerted is that due to the dissociated in other words in the double salt there may exist a certain amount of useless dissolved chemical thus leaving less room for the soluble gold double cyanide the compound which is the aim of this metallurgical process there exists a doubt however whether these theoretical ideas are confirmed by practice which of course presupposes that not only is the radical the effective one but assumes also that the metallic radical plays an important part As yet no conclusive data have been published on the question but we are aware that one big mining company in the united states after exhaustive trials with pure potassium cyanide with the double salt and with pure sodium cyanide has come to the conclusion that the sodium cyanide is not even as effective as the double salt and in a recent order it has been stipulated that the cyanide for its large milling establishment shall shaft be either pure potassium cyanide or the double salt the figures show a margin of only a few cents per ton in favor of potassium I 1 cyanide or of the double cyanide and the difference may be due largely to variation in the character of the ore this is a factor to be considered in all such tests |