Chemistry. — "On the Si/stem Ether- Chloro/onn\ By Prof. A. 

 Smits and V. S. K. Berckmans. (Commmiicated by Prof. S. 

 Hoogewerff). 



(Communicated in the meeting of June 29, 1918). 



1. Our investigation on the system ether-chloroform was prompted 

 by a remark of a physician addressed to one of us. He namely 

 drew our attention to the comparatively great generation of heat 

 which occurs when these two substances are mixed, a phenomenon 

 that was first observed by Guthrie '), and had given occasion to 

 the assumption of the existence of a so-called molecular compound 

 of the composition (C,H,),0 . CHCI3. because the heat-effect just 

 reaches a maximum value for a mixture of this concentration, as 

 follows from the adjoined figure 1. 



Guthrie thought he found a further sup|)ort for this assumption 



ij) the results of his researches 

 i5°| — I — I — \ — I — I — I — I — I — r~l on the volume contraction and 

 10° ,.-jfe=^=5t=^jj_ ji^g vapour tension of ether- 



5°1 — ^ -^ I — I — I — I — I — T^v 1 chloroform-mixtures, and it seems 



that he has also tried to test his 

 assumption by means of detei- 

 minations of the point of solidific- 

 ation. He namely says: "The liquid of the said concentration 

 solidifies below 0° to a white crystalline mass at a constant tem- 

 perature, which 1 shall state when I shall have determined it 

 accurately". Guthrie has, however, not come back to these determi- 

 nations of the point of solidification. 



Afterwards Dolezalek and Schulze's ') researches on the generation 

 of heat and volume contraction led them to the result that these 

 phenomena are maximum for an equimolecular mixture of ether 

 and chloroform. In the conviction that these phenoniena were to 

 be ascribed to the foi-mation of a compound they have tried by 

 fractionated crystallisation to separate this compound and found in 



MOLPROC. CHCL3 



FSul 



CH 



1) Phil. Mag. 5 18, 508 (1884). 



3) Zeilschr. f phys. Ghem. 83, 45 (1913). 



