Products
Sodium cyanide is used by the gold mining industry in Australia and around the world.
At AGR, we manufacture and supply sodium cyanide solution for our domestic markets and solid sodium cyanide for our export markets.
Sodium cyanide solution
We use a two-stage process to produce sodium cyanide solution:
- Air, natural gas and ammonia are mixed at high temperature over a catalyst to produce hydrogen cyanide gas.
- The hydrogen cyanide gas is then reacted with sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) in an absorber to produce sodium cyanide solution.
Sodium cyanide solution specifications
- Clear, colourless to red-brown liquid consistency
- 30% sodium cyanide by weight
- Strong ammonia odour
- Highly-alkaline, with 0.4% free sodium hydroxide
We use the gases left behind after the reaction process to produce steam, which we then distribute to our other CSBP manufacturing plants for use as power.
Solid sodium cyanide
Solid sodium cyanide is a dehydrated form of the solution, produced in three steps:
- Moisture is evaporated from the solution to form a slurry.
- The slurry is then dried and compacted into briquettes.
- The finished product is packaged into 20-tonne ISO-tainers or one-tonne intermediate bulk containers (IBCs).
Solid sodium cyanide specifications:
Sodium cyanide (NaCN) minimum purity % > 97%
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) maximum weight % = 0.4%
Average briquette weight = 18–20 grams average
Briquette size = 40 x 30 x 20mm
Storage and distribution facilities
At AGR, we take the utmost care with the storage and distribution of our sodium cyanide products.
We have extensive storage facilities at our CSBP Kwinana complex, with capacity to hold sufficient volume of sodium cyanide solution and solid material.
We transport our products using only specially-designed and approved containers, ISO-tainers, for sodium cyanide solution and intermediate bulk containers for solid sodium cyanide. We also operate a dedicated fleet of approved ISO-tanks to distribute sodium cyanide solution.