Origins of sodium cyanide
Discovered in 1807 by Cornish chemist Sir Humphry Davy, sodium is the 11th element in the periodic table. Sodium compounds such as table salt (NaCl) and soda (NaCO3) had been known since prehistoric times, but their composition had always been debated among chemists. That is, unitl Sir Humphry Davy came along, exposed sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to an electric current and found himself with globules of sodium metal. Absolutely shocking.
In 1704, a German pigment and dye producer named Johann Diesbach created a dye that he named Prussian blue (after the place in which it was discovered). Later, when chemists discovered a group of compounds with similar structures, they named them cyanides after the Greek word Kyanos, meaning blue.
Originallty, sodium cyanide was produced by drying blood along with other catalysts (a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction). Modern chemists, however, seemed to find that method slightly old-fashioned, and instead derived a less appalling method for producing NaCN on a commercial scale. Nowadays, sodium cyanide is produced by reacting hydrogen cyandide and sodium hydroxide.
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Although sodium cyanide is a synthetic (man-made) compound, sodium can be found in nature. Cyanide is also synthetic.
sodium (Na)
cyanide (CN)
