98 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



VIII. 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE CHEMICAL LABORATORY OP 



HARVARD COLLEGE. 



NOTE ON TRIBROMMONONITROBENZOL. 

 By C. Loring Jackson and W. B. Bentley. 



Presented May 13, 1891. 



The results of experiments on the behavior of tribromtrinitrobenzol 

 and tribromdiiiitrobenzol with various reagents have been described in 

 a number of papers from this Laboratory. For the sake of complete- 

 ness, we felt it necessary to include the tribrommononitrobenzol in our 

 investigation, and were the more inclined to do this as we hoped that 

 it might throw some light on the replacement of bromine by hydrogen, 

 so often observed in our work with the trinitro and dinitro compounds. 

 This hope has not, however, been fulfilled, as no such replacement of 

 bromine by hydrogen was observed, and the tribrommononitrobenzol 

 has proved to be so inert with various reagents, that it deserves only 

 the short investigation the results of which are given in this paper. 



The tribrommononitrobenzol used in this work was prepared by 

 boiling symmetrical tribrombenzol (melting point 119°) for 'fifteen 

 minutes with a nitric acid made by adding to fuming nitric acid 

 (specific gravity 1.51) one quarter of its volume of common strong 

 nitric acid (specific gravity 1.38). The greater part of the tribrom- 

 mononitrobenzol separated as the mixture cooled, and the rest was 

 obtained by the addition of water to the acid mother liquor. This 

 process gave better results than when acetic acid was used to dilute 

 the fuming nitric acid according to the method given by V. von 

 Richter.* 



Action of Tribrommononitrohenzol with Sodic Ethylate. 



The tribrommononitrobenzol melting at 125° was acted on by hot 

 sodic ethylate giving a substance which we found it convenient to 



* Ber. d. eh. G., VIII. 1426. 



