74 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



REACTIONS IN LIQUID AMMONIA. 



(Abstract.) 



By Edward Cuetis Feanklin, Leland Stanford Jr. University, California. 

 Read (by title) before the Academy, at Topeka, December 31, 1904. 



'T^HE striking parallelism between the general properties of liquid 

 -*- ammonia and water has been emphasized by Franklin and his 

 coworkers in previous papers. Water, among solvents, is character- 

 ized by its high boiling-point, its high specific heat, its high heat of 

 volatilization, its high critical temperature and pressure, its high asso- 

 ciation in the liquid condition, its high dielectric constant, by its low 

 boiling elevation constant, by its power to unite with salts as water of 

 crystallization, by its wide solvent power, and by the fact that, with 

 the possible exception of hydrocyanic acid, it is the most powerful 

 ionizing solvent known. Aqueous solutions of salts are generally ex- 

 cellent conductors of electricity. 



Of all well-known solvents ammonia most closely approaches water 

 in all those properties which give the latter its unique position among 

 solvents. While the boiling-point of liquid ammonia is thirty-three 

 degrees below zero, it still appears abnormally high when compared 

 with the boiling-points of such substances as methane, ethylene, hy- 

 drogen sulfide, phosphine, arsine, hydrochloric acid,^ etc. The spe- 

 cific heat of liquid ammonia is greater than that of water, while its 

 heat of volatilization, with the exception of water, is the highest of 

 any known liquid. Its critical temperature is abnormally high, and 

 especially the critical pressure, which is the more characteristic con- 

 stant, is second only to water among solvents. Ammonia is an asso- 

 ciated liquid, and its dielectric constant, while much below that of 

 water, is still high. Its boiling-point elevation constant is the lowest 

 of any known liquid, namely, 3.4, and it quite equals water in its 

 power to unite with salts as ammonia of crystallization. As a solvent 

 for salts it is inferior to water, though some salts, for example, silver 

 iodide, dissolve much more abundantly in ammonia than they do in 



1. The abnormally high boiling-point of liquid hydrofluoric acid, its evident association, 

 even in the gaseous condition, its power of uniting with fluorides, and the fact that Moissan 

 has found a hydrofluoric acid solution of potassium fluoride to be a good conductor of elec- 

 tricity, have led the writer to suspect that hydrofluoric acid is to be classed with water and 

 liquid ammonia as an electrolytic solvent. 



Some preliminary experiments on hydrofluoric acid have shown it to possess strong solvent 

 powers. Potassium fluoride, sodium fluoride, potassium chloride, sodium bromide, nitrate, 

 and chlorate, potassium bromate, acetamide, urea and potassium sulfate are abundantly 

 soluble; silver cyanide, barium fluoride and copper chloride appear to dissolve to some extent; 

 while calcium fluoride, copper sulfate, copper nitrate, ferrous chloride, mercuric oxide, lead 

 fluoride and metallic magnesium are insoluble. 



