In previous posts, we have briefly touched on cyanide and the gold mining industry. Let us elaborate a little bit more on the subject: cyanide is used during gold extraction to separate gold from ore, a process called gold cyanidation. Interestingly, this practice dates back to 1889, when the very first cyanidation plant was built at the Karangahake’s Crown Mine in New Zealand. But not much has changed in 120 years. In fact, only very few alternative processes (one of them developed at the lab of Nobel Prize winner Sir Fraser Stoddart) have the potential to compete against old-fashion cyanidation practices in the future. Until then, cyanide is expected to remain vital to an economically viable, water-based gold extraction process.
Yet, the combination of metals and cyanide in aqueous solutions is not limited to the mining industry. Cyanide derivatives are commonly used in the electroplating (also commonly known as galvanic) industry, where objects are dipped in cyanide-containing plating baths to metal-coat them. Just to give you an idea of the relevance of this industry, think of very shinny (inexpensive) jewelry or the rims of the wheels of your car.
Not many people are aware of the fact that a large number of economic activities heavily depend on industrial cyanide. To make our point, we’ve gathered (what we hope is) a rather surprising list of industries. Here it goes:
- Pharmaceutical (vitamin B12 production)
- Aerospace (airplane breaks and rocket propellants)
- Computer electronics
- Safety (fire retardants, Plexiglas, road salts)
- Plastics and polymers (nylon, adhesives)
- Beauty (nail polish remover and cosmetics)
- Chemical (dyes, paints)
- Food processing (table salt)
And here’s an interesting fact…
Most of the industrial cyanide produced today is not used for gold (or silver) processing.
More on this in a later posts.
