688 The Philippine Journal of Science 1921 
cause the equilibrium is disturbed. Schmidlin 19 states that the 
equilibrium between the colored and the colorless modifications 
is affected by the nature of the solvent, temperature, etc. 
At —63° C. in ether solution there is no color. 
Conductivity . — Hexaphenylethane dissolved in liquid sulphur 
dioxide behaves like an electrolyte. It conducts the electric cur- 
rent, and its molecular conductivity increases with dilution of 
the solution. 20 This is exactly what we would expect of the 
positive and negative ions of hexaphenylethane. 
CHEMICAL PROPERTIES 
Oxidation. — Gomberg lays great stress on the remarkable avid- 
ity with which “triphenylmethyl” takes up oxygen to form a 
peroxide. This is one of the main reasons why the dimolecular 
form (hexaphenylethane) is not regarded favorably, for one is 
led to look, rather, for an unsaturated compound. But let us ex- 
amine the interatomic conditions in the molecule of hexaphenyl- 
ethane. We have, it is true, a strong union between carbon 
atoms C (1) and C (2) (compound A, page 685), due to the 
strong elastic constraints of the six negative phenyl groups. But 
these six negative groups tend to pull the electrons away from the 
nuclei of carbon atoms C (1) and C(2), leaving large open 
spaces which become strong positive poles. Under these con- 
ditions an oxygen molecule is attracted and enters one of the 
large open spaces imthe shell, say, of carbon atom C(2). This 
atom then has, momentarily, two more than its normal number 
of electrons. 21 The carbon atom C (1) still has a strong at- 
traction for the pair shared between itself and carbon atom 
C (2), but this pair is no longer held firmly by C(2), so that the 
bond is broken and two ions are formed: 
(C 6 H 6 ) 8 = C" and C + = (C 6 H 5 )s 
8 
0 = 0 
Due to the attraction of the positive carbon kernel, C(2), all 
of the electrons in the oxygen molecule shift toward the carbon, 
leaving a positive area on the outer oxygen atom, which then 
joins to the negative ion, forming the peroxide molecule: 
(CeHeh EE C-O-O-C = (C fi H 5 ) 3 . 
10 Loc. cit. 
20 Walden, Zeitschr. phys. f. Chem. 43 (1903) 443; Gomberg and Cone, 
Ber. deutsch. chem. Ges. 37 (1904) 2043. 
21 Perkins, G. A., loc. cit. 
