208 CHEMICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION 



expected. The only point which seems to require further 

 investigation is the effect which the minute quantities of nickel 

 present in these foods may have on the human consumer. There 

 is at present no indication of serious consequences. 



In this great development the discoverer of the principle and 

 its application has, it is understood, no share. It is gratifying, 

 therefore, to record the recent award of a Nobel Prize for 

 chemistry to Professor Sabatier. 



The process of hydrogenation has been supplemented in an 

 interesting way by the discovery that the same catalytic agents 

 are capable in certain cases of inverting the process, and so 

 causing a disruption of the substance into hydrogen and a 

 residual compound. The alcohols, for example, may be resolved 

 in the presence of copper into hydrogen and aldehyde. The 

 process may be turned to industrial use for the production of 

 formaldehyde from methyl alcohol. 



Other catalytic agents have been found among the metallic 

 oxides by the Russian chemists Gregorieff and IpatiefL Alumina, 

 for instance, at a temperature near 300, causes generally the 

 dissociation of the primary alcohols into water and the corre- 

 sponding ethylenic hydrocarbon. 



But the process of dehydration seems to be always accom- 

 panied by dehydrogenation with the production of an aldehyde 

 and hydrogen gas. But whether the one or the other of these 

 changes predominates depends on the nature of the oxide. Thus 

 thoria, alumina, and tungstic pentoxide are very active in 

 decomposing the vapour of ethyl alcohol at 340 to 350 C., and 

 the gas evolved consists almost entirely of ethylene. Oxides of 

 zinc, manganese, and vanadium, on the other hand, are much 

 less active, and the gas produced is chiefly hydrogen. Alumina 

 at the lower temperature of 240 to 260 splits ethyl alcohol 

 almost entirely into ether and water. 



The action of various surfaces in promoting chemical action, 

 especially combustion, is illustrated by the important work 

 accomplished during recent years by Professor W. A. Bone of 

 the Imperial College of Science and Technology at South Kensing- 

 ton. A complete account up to that date was the subject of a 

 lecture given in November, 1912, to the German Chemical 

 Society in Berlin. A further summary was given at the Royal 

 Institution in London on 27th February, 1914, and in the 

 Howard Lectures to the Royal Society of Arts in March, 1914. 



