Investigations on the combustion of hydrocarbons II-Absorption spectra and chemical properties of intermediates

Abstract

The investigations recorded here are a development of the work of Egerton and Pidgeon on the absorption spectra of burning hydrocarbons, which had included investigations of the absorption and slow combustion of alcohols up to amyl alcohols, aldehydes up to valeraldehyde, acids up to butyric; amylene, ethylene, ethyl acetate, ethyl hydroperoxide, diethyl, peroxide, and of anti-knocks such as lead tetraethyl, iron carbonyl, butyl iodide, and aniline. The results were compared with the slow combustion of the normal hydrocarbons up to pentane, in the same apparatus. The only intermediates which could be demonstrated spectroscopically in the slow combustion of hydrocarbons were formaldehyde and organic acids, mainly because only these substances have a sufficiently large absorption coefficient to he detectable at the concentrations occurring. In addition, a characteristic hand was discovered at the end of the (pseudo) induction period, in the slow combustion of the higher hydrocarbons, though the molecule responsible for it was not identified, in spite of a considerable search among the ordinary products of slow combustion.