Uploaded September 2016 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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There is an interesting reagent called Sodium Nitroprusside. It is sometimes used to identify several ions and is capable of distinguishing between Sulfite and Sulfide for example as well as forming many colored complexes. As we showed in our Cadmium Sulfide video, Sodium Polysulfide, made from elemental Sulfur and Sodium Hydroxide seems to be an alternative for the rather unstable Sodium Sulfide. So we tried to make the famous Sulfide test using Nitroprusside and a selfmade Polysulfide solution.

Here is the result. Note, as we didn't have any other source of H2S or Sulfide we could not compare this to the real test. So we assume the compound formed should have the composition as given in the title.