CHAPTER IV. 



A STUDY OF THE ELECTRICAL CONDUCTANCE OF THE SODIUM SALTS 

 OF CERTAIN ORGANIC ACIDS IN ABSOLUTE ETHYL ALCOHOL AT 

 15, 25. AND 35. 



BY H. H. LLOYD AND A. M. PARDEE. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In the Johns Hopkins laboratory, for some years past, a compre- 

 hensive study has been made of the electrical conductance and dissoci- 

 ation of various organic acids in aqueous solution. 1 This work was 

 extended to absolute-alcohol solutions by Wightman, Wiesel, and 

 Jones, 2 and by Lloyd, Wiesel, and Jones. 3 These investigators were 

 unable to obtain, or even to approach, experimentally A , the equiva- 

 lent conductance at zero concentration. The authors have therefore 

 investigated the behavior of the sodium salts of the organic acids in 

 absolute alcohol in order to obtain first the A values for these salts and 

 then, by substitution in the Kohlrausch equation, 4 the A values for the 

 acids themselves. The writers are interested also in the accumulation 

 of accurate conductance data, as well as in such questions as tempera- 

 ture coefficients of conductance, conductance in relation to chemical 

 constitution, limits of experimental accuracy in working with dilute 

 solutions in absolute alcohol, and the general phenomenon of alco- 

 holysis. 



HISTORICAL. 



The measurement of the electrical conductance of the sodium salts 

 of organic acids in absolute alcohol up to the present time has received 

 but scant attention. With few exceptions, all investigations were 

 incidental in nature and the compounds studied were chosen simply 

 as types of organic salts. 



Dutoit and Rappeport, 5 in a study of the limiting conductances of 

 some electrolytes in absolute alcohol, measured sodium acetate, 

 among other salts, evidently taking the same as an example of the salts 

 of organic acids. They subjected their results to some rather inter- 

 esting deductions, but their conductances were measured at 18, mak- 



^arnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. No. 170, part n; No. 210, chap. n. 



Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. No. 210, chap, in; Journ. Amer. Chem. Soc. 36, 2243 (1914). 

 8 Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. No. 230, chap, vn; Journ. Amer. Chem. Soc. 38, 121 (1916). 

 4 W. Ostwald: Zeit. physik. Chem., 2, 561 (1888) ; 3, 170 (1889) ; Amer. Chem. Journ. 46, 66 (1914). 

 Mour. chem. Phys. 6, 545 (1908). 



99 



