Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Liquid Gases" to "Logar"

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Liquid Gases" to "Logar" - Volume 16, Slice 7

LIQUID GASES.1 Though Lavoisier remarked that if the earth were removed to very cold regions of space, such as those of Jupiter or Saturn, its atmosphere, or at least a portion of its aeriform constituents, would return to the state of liquid (uvres, ii. 805), the history of the liquefaction of gases may be said to begin with the observation made by John Dalton in his essay On the Force of Steam or Vapour from Water and various other Liquids (1801): There can scarcely be a doubt entertained respecting the reducibility of all elastic fluids of whatever kind into liquids; and we ought not to despair of effecting it in low temperatures and by strong pressures exerted on the unmixed gases. It was not, however, till 1823 that the question was investigated by systematic experiment. In that year Faraday, at the suggestion of Sir Humphry Davy, exposed hydrate of chlorine to heat under pressure in the laboratories of the Royal Institution. He placed the substance at the end of one arm of a bent glass tube, which was then hermetically sealed, and decomposing it by heating to 100 F., he saw a yellow liquid distil to the end of the other arm. This liquid he surmised to be chlorine separated from the water by the heat and condensed into a dry fluid by the mere pressure of its own abundant vapour, and he verified his surmise by compressing chlorine gas, freed 745 from water by exposure to sulphuric acid, to a pressure of about four atmospheres, when the same yellow fluid was produced (Phil. Trans., 1823, 113, pp. 160-165). He proceeded to experiment with a number of other gases subjected in sealed tubes to the pressure caused by their own continuous production by chemical action, and in the course of a few weeks liquefied sulphurous acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, carbonic acid, euchlorine, nitrous acid, cyanogen, ammonia and muriatic acid, the last of which, however, had previously been obtained by Davy. But he failed with hydrogen, oxygen, fluoboric, fluosilicic and phosphuretted hydrogen gases (Phil. Trans., ib. pp. 189-198). Early in the following year he published an Historical statement respecting the liquefaction of gases (Quart. Journ. Sci., 1824, 16, pp. 229-240), in which he detailed several recorded cases in which previous experimenters had reduced certain gases to their liquid state. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

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Ebook Number: 42173
Author: Various
Release Date: Feb 23, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English