Talk:Sodium nitroprusside

Non-medicinal uses

This page seems to be focused on the compound's use in medicine, but there seem to be other uses. It is used in the detection of methamphetamine and MDMA and seems to be a common drug-test reagent. If there are enough non-medicinal uses, a new section might help. --24.16.148.75 15:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hazards

I agree with the above. The page listed the chemical as non-hazardous, but common MSDS's (which should be pointed at by this page) list hazards identical to cyanide poisoning.

It was also mentioned as a candidate for next-generation optical memory devices. ("Наука и жизнь" mag., www.nkj.ru, few years ago.)As stated in that article, it is normally transparent to red and green light; blue light gradually makes it black (i.e. no longer transparent to red and green), and red light reverses the effect. Please check that! 217.8.94.135 16:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Mechanism of Action

"Its mechanism of action appears to be liberation of nitric oxide (NO), converting Haemoglobin to cyanomethaemaglobin". NO surely works by binding to the haem group of guanylyl cyclase, activating it and so increasing levels of cGMP, ultimately relaxing vascular smooth muscle. NO would be taken up by red cells and would convert some of their haem to methaemoglobin, but that is hardly the mechanism of action.Moletrouser (talk) 15:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Magnetism

It says this is a paramegnetic ion. Off the top of my head, if it's Fe(II) with that ligand set it would be low spin and diamagnetic. Chris (talk) 19:32, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

• I was right, and I've corrected it. Chris (talk) 07:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Nitroglycerin

What's the link between Sodium nitroprusside and Nitroglycerin? In The Netherlands we don't know nitroprusside, only nitroglycerin. PizzaMan (talk) 12:39, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• Answered my own question, sort of. Nitroglycerin is used under the tongue for angina. Nitroprusside is only used intravenously in the hospital against very high blood pressures. I guess that's why nitroprusside is just not mentioned in the dutch register of medication [1] PizzaMan (talk) 12:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC).

Too many bonds for the N atom in the schematics

The -N=O ending in the schematics has too many links (3) between N and O. Should be 2 (N is 3-valent, while O is bivalent).

Could someone please fix the image?

The image was correct, before Materialscientist changed it. Please see metal nitrosyl. Nirmos (talk) 15:41, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

the image is incorrect: most would draw a triple bonding from N to O, of course: covalency, symmetry, and all that messy stuff... But no big deal, folks who work with metal nitrosyls know to expect weird drawings.--Smokefoot (talk) 15:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... there should be three bonds. If there are only two bonds, I would imagine the M-N-O bond would be bent. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 16:43, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes indeed, but I am not sure the change is worth the bother. Sometimes we show M-CO with triple bonds between C and O and sometimes a double bond....--Smokefoot (talk) 16:59, 30 October 2010 (UTC)