Abstract
MUCH attention is now being paid to the scientific aspects of the phenomenon of “drying” whereby, for instance, boiled linseed oil on exposure to the air is converted by oxidation into a hard varnish-like product. The experiments by which Dr. R. S. Morrell was able to isolate a crystalline component from a drying-oil (Trans. Chem. Soc, 1912, vol. ci., 2082), namely, by the action of light upon Hankow “Chinese wood oil,” have already been noted in these columns. A further advance is recorded in a paper by Dr. A. H. Salway, which has recently appeared in the Chemical Society's Journal (vol. cix., pp. 138–45). This investigator has oxidised linseed oil by shaking it with oxygen at ioo°, and trapping the volatile products in a wash-bottle containing water. Not only was the odour of acrolein, CH2:CH-CHO, observed, but the solution showed the chemical reactions of an aldehyde, and on shaking with silver oxide gave a sufficient quantity of silver acrylate, CH2:CH.CO.OAg, for identification by estimation of the silver contained in it.
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L., T. The Oxidation of Drying-oils . Nature 97, 269–270 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/097269b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/097269b0