Also refer to 2000 Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG2000) Guide 135.

Health Hazards

Sodium sulfide is irritating to the skin and mucous membranes and is toxic by inhalation and ingestion. It decomposes on burning, contact with acids, or water to produce toxic and corrosive gases. Aqueous solutions are strongly basic, react violently with acid and arecorrosive. Reacts violently with oxidants .

Risk and Safety Phrases.

INDUSTRIAL/COMMERCIAL USES

Sodium sulfide has a number of uses. The most extensive use is in the deplilation of hides for leather before tanning, in wood pulp processing and desulfuration of rayon and cellophane. It is also used in the manufacture of polymers, elastomers, lubrication oils, and organic compounds. It is used as a reducing agent and in ore flotation and in the recovery of metals as the insoluble sulfides. A recent development has been in the development of scrubbers for the capture of oxides of nitrogen from gases.

COMMENTS

Sodium sulfide is used in the preparation of sulfur mustard from thiodiglycol.Sodium sulfide has been manufactured by the reduction of sodium sulfate with carbon at high temperatures to yield the sulfide and carbon dioxide. The method is not widely used any more. Sodium sulfide is now largely obtained as a byproduct of barium ore processing. It may also be manufactured from sodium hydroxide and hydrogen sulfide. The hydrogen sulfide may be obtained from sulfide ores by treatment with a mineral acid such as hydrochloric acid. Annual production of sodium sulfide in the US has been in the range 25-80 thousand tons/year since 1965.