Papers on etherification and on the constitution of salts / by Alexander W. Williamson ... (1850-1856).

  • Williamson, Alexander W. (Alexander William), 1824-1904.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Papers on etherification and on the constitution of salts / by Alexander W. Williamson ... (1850-1856). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

    17/72 (page 13)
    Etherificatioji. 13 for by this sulphovinic acid coming in contact with an atom of alcohol, it reacts exactly in the same manner as the iodide did, forming of course sulphuric acid and aether : C2 H5 H The sulphuric acid thus reproduced comes again in contact with alcohol, forming sulphovinic acid, which reacts as before ; and so the process goes on continuously, as found in practice. We thus see that the formation of aether from alcohol is neither a process of simple separation, nor one of mere synthesis ; but that it consists in the substitution of one molecule for another, and is effected by double decomposition between two com- pounds. I therefore admit the contact theory, inas- much as I acknowledge the circumstance of contact as a necessary condition of the reaction of the mole- cules upon one another. By reducing the formulae of the alcohols to one atom of oxygen, I also retain the equality of volumes which the contact theory insists upon between the vapours of these bodies and their aethers, so that aether truly contains the elements of olefiant gas in addition to those of alcohol in one atom. But, on the other hand, I attach equal im- portance to all the essential facts of the chemical theory, and rest my explanation of the process as much upon them as upon those of the contact theory ; for, one-sixth of the hydrogen in alcohol truly ex- hibits .different reactions from the remaining iive, and must therefore be contained in that compound in a different manner from them ; and the alternate formation and decomposition of sulphovinic acid is