Isolation of a Heavy Sulphur

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AT the hundredth meeting of the American Chemical Society, which opened at Detroit on September 9, Drs. David W. Stewart and Karl Cohen, of Columbia University, described the preparation of heavy sulphur. According to Science Service, of Washington, D.C., the researches were conducted under the direction of Prof. Harold C. Urey, head of the Department of Chemistry of the University, who received the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1934 for his work in the discovery of heavy hydrogen. Ordinary sulphur contains four isotopes; S32 (95 per cent); S34 (4 per cent), which is the isotope now isolated; S33 (1 per cent); and S36 (O˙Ol per cent). Separation of the isotope was achieved with Prof. Urey's counter-current scrubbing method, previously used to separate isotopes of carbon and of nitrogen. Sulphur dioxide was passed up through 150 ft. of sodium hydrogen sulphite flowing downwards. S34 is more soluble in the liquid than the other varieties; and, at the end of the proeess, the emergent liquid contained about a quarter of the heavy isotope. Researches are now being carried out by Dr. Vincent du Vigneaud, professor of biochemistry in the Cornell University School of Medicine, using heavy sulphur to determine the role of the element in the chemistry of the living organism.