Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 Excerpt:...CELLULOSE AND FORMIC ACID The interaction of cellulose and formic acid, as a theoretical problem, suggest many complicating factors arising out of their individual characteristics. These have been rather overlooked in these earlier stages of development of a new group of derivatives which also offer many features of technical interest. Having investigated ourselves certain of these products, we were impressed with the alternative view, that these points of technical interest were rather overshadowed by the purely scientific interest of the facts disclosed by our investigations, even though only of a superficial and preliminary order. An account of these preliminary studies is embodied in a communication which being mainly a record of experimental numbers we reproduce in extenso. THE INTERACTION OF FORMIC ACID AND CELLULOSE. C. F. Cross and E. J. Bevan (' Chem. Soc. J.,' 1911, 99, 1450). Products of interaction of cellulose and formic acid have been described in various communications (Berl and Smith, 'Ber.,' 1907, 40,906; R. C. Woodbridge, 'J. Amer. Chem. Soc.,' 1909, 31, 1067) and patent specifications, and it is generally assumed that such products are formed by a process of simple esterification. The probability of formic acid reacting in more than one way should, however, be taken into account, and also, as a factor in the reaction, the labile equilibrium of the cellulose complex and its tendency to change its configuration under the action of reagents (Trans., 1904, 85, 691). The possible modes of action of formic acid are, in addition to the normal replacement of alcoholic hydroxyl groups by the O " COH residue: (1) As a consequence of the avidity of the acid, an attack on the cellulose complex by hydrolysis or condensation, or by both processes...