STUDIES ON THE PHENOMENA OF CONTACT. 



THE CATALYTIC FORCE, 



STUDIES ON THE PHENOMENA OF CONTACT. 



A PRIZE MEMOIR, CY T. L. PHIPSON, D. S. TRANSLATED FOR THE 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION BY C. A. ALEXANDER. 



Question. "The existence of what is called the catalytic force, in which the explanation 



' of many. phenomena has been heretofore sought, having become more and more doubtful, the 



society desires a rigoious examination of the phenomena which some savans continue to 



explain by that force." — Question proposed bythe Socicte HoUandaisc .des Sciences. Haarlem, 



]858. 



The pliciaomena attributed to the catalytic force, such as the iucandescence 

 of platiua in the vapor of alcohol, the uuiou of oxygen and hydrogen by means 

 of platina, of pumice-stone, of humus, &c., fermentation, eremacausis, putrefaction, 

 &c., &c., are extremely common, and occupy a prominent place in chem- 

 ical studies. At first glance they all appear to offer an exception to the general 

 laws of chemical affinity. There is, however, nothing of the kind ; and these 

 phenomena which are so often met with, and w^hich, so to speak, have become 

 general, afford, when we rigorously examine them, the same character of every 

 other chemical reaction. 



One thing which has especially conducted me towards what I regard as the 

 true interpretation of catalytic phenomena, is the study which has been recently 

 made of ozone and the allotropic conditions of certain bodies other than oxygen. 

 The production of ozone by the contact of phosphorus and moist air may be 

 regarded, with the combination of hydrogen and oxygen by platina, as the 

 type of catalytic phenomena. 



The experiments of MM. Marignac, Fremy, Bccquerel, Andrews, &c., &:c., 

 prove, in an unexceptionable manner, that ozone is pure oxygen, as the diamond 

 is pure carbon. If, then, we could succeed in determining by experiment the 

 modifications which the molecule of oxygen undergoes in passing to the state 

 of ozone, an important step Avould be taken towards the exact interpretation of 

 all the phenomena of contact. 



The properties of ozone, when compared with those of oxygen, are ex- 

 tremely remarkable and too well known to chemists to require full recapitula- 

 tion here. It will suffice, I think, to say that ozone is to oxygen what 

 oxygenated w^ater is to water — it is oxygen whose polarity is the most decided 

 possible ; tliat is, whose tendency to combine with other bodies is developed 

 in the highest degree. I 



"VVe must dwell a little on the phenomenon of polarity. Let us consider what 

 chemists understand by this word. When tAvo different bodies are about 

 to combine, we know that one passes into the electro-positive state, the other 

 becoming, at the same time, electro-negative. Thus, wdien we add a base to an 

 acid, the base becomes electro-positive, the acid electro-negative ; and when 

 the combination is effected, the electricities of opposite names are given ofiF. It 

 is then atcII established, at the present time, that a molecule A, on the point of 

 combining with a molecule B, takes an electricity opposite to that of the latter. 



