Normal C1 Research Articles

Production of Carbonyl Compounds by Tomato Fruit Tissue in the Presence of Aliphatic Alcohols

IT is well established that, in the absence of oxygen, many types of plant tissue produce ethanol. Under normal conditions, ethanol, other alcohols and various aldehydes are produced in small amounts by ripening fruits and other plant organs1–3. The question whether ethanol is metabolized by plant tissues has, on the other hand, been a source of controversy. In recent years Phillips4, working with barley seedlings, Wager5 with peas and Lowe and James6 with mature carrot disks have found no evidence for appreciable utilization of ethanol. However, Cossins and Turner7–9 showed that ethanol was consumed by the tissue in germinating peas and was converted initially to acetaldehyde and acetone, followed by the production of organic acids and amino-acids. Homogenates of a variety of germinating seeds were shown10, by redox indicator, to have alcohol dehydrogenase activity when the normal C2−, C3− and C4− aliphatic alcohols were added as substrates. Less activity was evident in the presence of the normal C1− or C5−, secondary C3− or iso-C4−, and tertiary C4− or C5− alcohols. Recently, Cossins and Beevers11 showed that carrot disks, corn and pea shoots, potato disks and castor bean endosperm rapidly metabolized carbon-14-labelled ethanol, while apple tissue consumed it very slowly. Their results suggested that acetyl coenzyme-A was derived from ethanol and converted to lipids, amino-acids, organic acids and sugars by known pathways.

Adsorption of normal paraffins and sulfur compounds on activated carbon

AbstractAdsorption isotherms on activated carbon were determined gravimetrically for normal C1 and C3‐C6 paraffins and subsequently for methyl, ethyl, and n‐propyl mercaptans, hydrogen sulfide, carbonyl sulfide, and carbon disulfide, at pressures up to 1 atm. and from −23° to 100°C. Orthobaric liquid densities at low temperatures of some of the sulfur gases were determined pycnometrically. The adsorption data on correlation by the method of Lewis, Gilliland, Chrtow, and Cadogan (1) gave two separate curves, one for the paraffins and one for the sulfur compounds. The results show the correlation to be useful for estimating the adsorptive capacity of chemically similar compounds from a minimum of experimental data.