- Considerable discussion has taken place as to the structure of the metallic cyanides, since potassium cyanide and silver cyanide react with alkyl iodides to form nitriles and isonitriles respectively, thus apparently pointing to the fact that these two compounds possess the formulae KCN and AgNC. The metallic cyanides are analogous to the alkyl isocyanides, since they form soluble double silver salts, and the fact that ethyl ferrocyanide on distillation yields ethyl isocyanide also points to their isocyanide structure.
Chloroform may be readily detected by the production of an isonitrile when it is heated with alcoholic potash and a primary amine; thus with aniline, phenyl isocyanide (recognized by its nauseating smell) is produced, CHC13+C6H5NH2+3KHO=C6H5NC+3KC1+3H20.
