120 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



becomes moist and smells strongly of phenol, whereas, 

 w^ien freshly prepared, it has no odor. Evidently either 

 the oxygen or the moisture of the air (most probably the 

 latter, but possibly both), acts upon it with the liberation 

 of phenol and the formation of aluminum oxide. The 

 reaction is probably represented by the following equation: 



2 Al ( Co H5 )3 + 3H2 AI2 O3 + GHO.C, H5. 



The phenol is probably simply held mechanically, and 

 the crystalline grains are probably aluminum oxide. 



When distilled it did not melt down as fresh aluminum 

 phenolate does, but remained in the powdery form in 

 which it was placed in the flask, throughout the distilla- 

 tion, nor did the particles run together in the least. It 

 apparently distilled at a lower temperature than fresh 

 aluminum phenolate. From 123 grams of the substance 

 there resulted 89 grams of the distillate and 84 grams of a 

 powdery residue, which was poured from the flask as so 

 much sand. On redistilling this distillate a portion came 

 over below" the boiling point of phenol, which had the 

 characteristic odor of benzene. Most of the substance, 

 however, came over at 179" — 180°, the boiling point of 

 phenol. There were no higher boiling substances formed. 

 The odor of phenyl ether which is so conspicuous in the 

 phenol that results from the destructive distillation of 

 aluminum phenolate, was not observed. The process of 

 distillation evidently simply separated the mechanically 

 held phenol with a little dissolved benzene from the alu- 

 minum oxide and other residue. 



The distillation of the aluminum phenolate was carried 

 out in a distilling flask containing from 100 to 200 grams of 

 the substance. The products of distillation are a very 

 small quantity of benzene (which, however, may have 

 resulted from the reducing action of the nascent hydrogen 

 on the phenol during the process of manufacture of the 

 aluminum phenolate, and may have been simply held 

 mechanically in the impure aluminum phenolate), a vary- 

 ing amount of phenyl ether, and some higher boiling sub- 

 stances not yet identified. Gladstone and Tribe purified 



