ALUMINIUM ALCOHOLATES. 
ORIN EDSON CROOKER. 
We distinguish the alcoholates as being those chemical com 
pounds in which the hydrogen atom of the hydroxal group in an al¬ 
cohol is replaced by a metal. The name “ alcoholate ” has been ap¬ 
plied in the past, and to some extent is applied at present, to 
certain compounds which result from the direct union of the 
alcohols with many inorganic salts and in which the alcohol 
seems to serve in the same capacity that water of crystallization 
does in crystals. In our work, however, it has been found more 
convenient to give to these substances the name “ addition pro¬ 
ducts ” and to reserve the name “ alcoholate ” to those com¬ 
pounds alone which result from a direct attack upo.i the hydroxyl 
group of the alcohol itself. 
The results of the work which has been done on this subject 
are to be found scattered throughout the chemical literature for 
the last thirty or forty years. Most of the more common al¬ 
coholates have been prepared, but in many cases not even anal¬ 
yses were made of them; for they are of so little stability, due 
to their hydroscopic nature, that they do not present a held of 
the greatest attraction to the chemist. Besides this we have to 
take into account that there has been found as yet but one class 
of alcoholates which can be purified by distillation. These are 
the aluminium alcoholates. They have been worked with only 
once, and that when Gladstone and Tribe prepared them about 
ten years ago by means of their aluminium-iodine reaction. 1 2 
1 The work on the alcoholates as set forth in this paper, was done by Mr. 
Holland Hastreiter and myself as thesis work in the University of Wis¬ 
consin under the direction of Dr. H. W. Hillyer, assistant professor of Or¬ 
ganic Chemistry. Mr. Hastreiter’s work was done on the methylate and 
propylate. 
s J. Cem. Soc. 1881, (39) p. 1.; 1882, (41) p. 5; 1886, (49) p. 25. 
