Radiation Yield of Citraconic and Mesaconic Acids in Aqueous Solution

Abstract

EXPERIMENTS have been carried out in order to ascertain whether the double-bound radiolability of citraconic acid is different from that of its isomer mesaconic acid in aqueous solution. Mesaconic and citraconic acids were purchased from Fluka and were used without further purification. The water was prepared by distillation of de-ionized water from potassium permanganate. The solutions were irradiated with a cobalt-60 source at (4.20±0.12) × 10¹⁵ eV/(ml. × min). The source calibration was made with the Fricke dosimeter¹. The determinations of mesaconic and citraconic acids were carried out spectrophotometrically at 220 mµ by a Beckman spectrophotometer model DU. When carboxylic group is conjugated with C=C, its absorption band in the ultra-violet regions is shifted to longer wave-lengths and the molecular extinction coefficient is increased at the same time by a factor of about 10² (ref. 2).