Silver cyanate

Silver cyanate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula AgNCO. It is the silver salt of cyanic acid. It is an ionic compound made of a silver cation and an cyanate anion.

Discovery of isomerism

Silver cyanate is made of the same chemical elements as silver fulminate, but acts very differently. When silver cyanate and silver fulminate were discovered by Friedrich Wöhler and Justus von Liebig, chemists believed that if two chemicals were made of the same amount of the same elements, they had to be the same. When Wöhler and von Liebig checked their data, they agreed that both compounds had the same elements, proving the old theory wrong. Jöns Jacob Berzelius named this relationship isomerism.[1]

  1. ↑ Esteban, Soledad (2008). "Liebig–Wöhler Controversy and the Concept of Isomerism". Journal of Chemical Education. 85 (9): 1201. Bibcode:2008JChEd..85.1201E. doi:10.1021/ed085p1201.
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