Chemistry. — "On Complex Salts of Ferri-Malonic-Acid" . By 

 Prof. Di'. F. M. Jaeger and Dr. R. T. A. Mees. 



(Communicated in the meeting of June 30, 1917.) 



§ 1. For certain purposes connected with tiie investigations into 

 Pasteur's principle as made in this laboratory, it appeared desirable 

 to prepare optically-active complex salts of trivalent iron with the 

 radicals of è/valent carboxylic acids. 



Such salts are already known derived from oxalic acid; some 

 of tliem derived from ma/onic acid were prepared by Scholz ^), 

 but in a not very recommendable way. The data given by this 

 author concerning the content of crystallisation-water in these salts, 

 do not agree with our numbers, moreover. 



There exist in reality several series of hydrates here, as may 

 become clear in the following paragraphs. 



Moreover, analogous complex salts may be obtained, as we found, 

 from tartronic acid, and from some substituted tartronic acids, as 

 we shall demonstrate later-on. 



^ 2. All attempts made by us with the purpose of resolving 

 these racemic salts into their optically-active components, never gave 

 really positive results, neither with derivatives of oxalic, nor with 

 those of ma Ionic acid. 



In the case of the complex malonates the fission was attempted 

 by means of the st?\i/chnine-, brucine-, and cincho7iine-sa\is. These 

 last gave sirupy, very viscous liquids, which did not crystallise. 

 The strychnine- and brucine-ferri-malonates crystallise in small, 

 greenish-yellow crystals, but after fractional crystallisation and eli- 

 mination of the alcaloids from the salts obtained, no optically active 

 solutions were obtained. The tri-strychnine-s-aXi whose constitution, 

 from analysis, could be established to be : \Fe{CiH^O^)^\ Str^ -\- 6 R,0, 

 showed a rotation corresponding about to the amount of strychnine 

 present in it. 



After the base had been removed by means of /iT/, the potassium- 

 salt obtained appeared to be optically //^active, probably by very 

 rapid racemisation. No attempts made with the purpose of prevent- 



A. Scholz, Monatshefte f. Chemie 29. 439. (1908).. 



19* 



