Silver cyanide reaction with other anions. Some silver cyanides are luminescent. Both AgCN and KAg(CN) have been used in silver-plating solutions since at least 1840 when the Elkington brothers patented their recipe for a silver-plating solution. A typical, traditional silver-plating solution would contain KAg(CN) 15-40 gL, KCN 12-120 gL and KCO gL. Silver cyanide Silver cyanide is the chemical compound with the formula AgCN. This white solid forms upon treatment of solutions containing Ag with cyanide. This precipitation step is used in some schemes to recover silver from solution. Silver cyanide is used in silver-plating. Its structure consist of -[Ag-CN]- chains in
Silver usually obtained by reacting silver or silver monofluoride with the strongest known oxidizing agent, krypton difluoride. Silver and gold have rather low chemical affinities for oxygen, lower than copper, and it is therefore expected that silver oxides are thermally quite unstable. Soluble silver(I) salts precipitate dark-brown silver(I) oxide, AgO, upon the addition of alkali. (The hydroxide AgOH exists only in solution; otherwise it spontaneously decomposes to the oxide.) Silver(I) oxide is very easily reduced to metallic silver, and decomposes to silver and oxygen above 160 °C. This and other silver(I) compounds may be oxidized by the strong oxidizing agent peroxodisulfate