Abstract
THERE is no reason to suppose that Davy ever separated the chlorine from the chlorine dioxide in euchlorine, or that he deliberately gave the latter name to pure chlorine dioxide. In his “Elements of Chemical Philosophy” (1812, p. 239) he says: “Chlorine is rapidly absorbed by mercury; euchlorine has no action upon it, and chlorine may be separated from euchlorine, by agitation over mercury, and the last obtained pure.” This is incorrect, since chlorine dioxide attacks mercury (King and Partington, J. Chem. Soc., 925; 1926). There can be no doubt whatever that Davy's euchlorine was, as it is always correctly stated in textbooks to have been, a mixture of chlorine and chlorine dioxide, since (op. cit., 240) he found that on decomposition by heat it gave 2 vols. of chlorine and 1 vol. of oxygen: “50 parts treated in this way, expand so as to become about 60 parts, which consist of 40 parts of chlorine and 20 parts of oxygene.” The separation of pure chlorine dioxide from the mixture, by passing it over calomel, and the first proof that euchlorine is a mixture of chlorine dioxide and chlorine are due to Soubeiran (Ann. Chim. Phys., 48, 116; 1831; mentioned by Turner, “Elements of Chemistry”, 1834, p. 341, who says “most chemists regarded the existence of euchlorine as problematical, suspecting it to be a mixture of chlorine with the peroxide of chlorine”). Soubeiran's work seems to have been overlooked. Pebal finally decided the matter, if that were necessary; his memoir (Liebigs Annalen, 177, 1; 1875) is a model of experimental research.
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PARTINGTON, J. Euchlorine. Nature 132, 714 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132714b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132714b0
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