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Sodium Cyanate

Synthesis

Sodium cynate can be made industrially by mixing sodium carbonate and urea under heat. Its reaction formation is:

Na2CO3 + 2 OC(NH2)2 → 2 NaNCO + CO2 + 2 NH3 + H2O

Uses

Sodium cyanate can be used as an herbicide. This herbicide is mainly used to get rid of the weeds found on a lawn. It can also be used for onion crops. Sodium cyanate can also be used as a fertilizer and this is because it has a great amount of available nitrogen. Also, when pesticides and dyes intermediate are created, sodium cyanate can be used. There are also organic reactions that can take place with the use of sodium cyanate, like adding to amines to form urea derivatives.

Health Effects

If one gets sodium cyanate in the eye or on the skin, it can cause irritation. Flush the eyes with a lot of water for fifteen minutes if this happens, and if it gets on the skin, remove clothing, and use soap. If one ingests it, it can irritate the digestive tract, but may or may not be fatal, as this has not been assessed yet. One should not induce vomiting it out and if conscious, drink cupfuls of water or milk, but seek medical aid. If inhaled, it can cause irritation to the respiratory tract. If inhaled, oxygen should be administered if one has a difficult time breathing, and must remove the substance from fresh air right away. Medical aid should be sought out. There have not been enough studies done on these health risks to determine if sodium cyanate is toxological, and there has been no information found on if sodium cyanate has any chronic health risks.

Sickle Cell Anemia

Sodium Cyanate has been found to be useful in treating sickle cell anemia. Sodium cyanate can be purified and it possesses certain chemical properties that pertain to studies/ clinical trials done on sickle cell anemia. Sodium cyanate can break down into ammonia and sodium bicarbonate, sodium bicarbonate being the one that is detected after sodium cyanate is purified. The way to increase the reaction of cyanate and water is to increase the concentration of it, decrease the pH of the solution, or to increase the temperature of the system. To sterilize sodium cyanate, one should use dry heat. Sodium cyanate is stable compared to the aqueous solution under multiple conditions, like concentration, time, and temperature (these are the conditions that erythrocytes are exposed to in the clinical experiments).

An example of an experiment that was done was when samples of blood were taken from patients who suffered from sickle cell anemia. The blood was pre-incubated with sodium cyanate to observe the effect it had on the sample. From the results of this experiment, sodium cyanate had a similar effect on total protein synthesis in red blood cells from patients with sickle cell anemia, sickle-beta thalassemia, and homozygous beta thalassemia. It was discovered that sodium cyanate has various effects on the red blood cells, which can be due to the increased affinity for oxygen and higher proportion of oxyhemoglobin that can occur with carbamylation instead of a direct inhibition of sickling.