Abstract
IN April 1929 I published a paper on “Monofluor-phosphoric Acid and the Similarity of its Salts to the Sulphates” in the Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, p. 793. I stated that I had succeeded in preparing the monofluorphosphates, which I described in detail and also that the ion PO3F″ shows all the properties of SO4″. I pointed out that the salts of monofluorphosphoric acid resemble completely the salts of sulphuric acid and that the crystallographic investigation of the new salts was being carried out. I considered that the reasons for the similarity of chemical properties of the two ions lay in the similarity of the radii of the two central atoms, in the equality of their co-ordination number and of the electric charges of the anions and also in the equality of the volumes of O″ and F′. At the end of the paper I stressed the fact that this investigation was still in progress. The direction in which the investigation was being continued is revealed in a petition which I addressed on April 29, 1929, to the Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft which contains this statement: “monofluorphosphoric acid H2PO3F resembles sulphuric acid H2SO4 so closely that it even gives alums, which are isomorphous with ordinary sulphate alums”. Since the discovery of alums was to be foreseen by anyone after the publication of these facts, I delayed immediate publication of the new results, since they did not involve any new point of view.
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LANGE, W. Isomorphism and Chemical Homology. Nature 126, 916 (1930). https://doi.org/10.1038/126916b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/126916b0
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