Abstract
THERE has been much discussion and experiment about the question whether the thermal decomposition of various organic vapours under prescribed conditions occurs predominantly by way of free radicals or not. For the decomposition of acetone in a reaction of measurable rate in the neighbourhood of 500°–630°, all the existing evidence is against the radical mechanism, except that advanced by A. O. Allen1, who found that on reducing the reaction temperature to 462° an ‘induction period’ was observable. He regarded this as evidence for the existence of chains which required time to develop.
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References
J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 58, 1052 (1936).
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DAVOUD, J., HINSHELWOOD, C. Thermal Decomposition of Acetone. Nature 144, 909–910 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144909a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144909a0
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