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measured under the same conditions? Are your results in accord with the experimental facts?

CHAPTER XVII CARBON AND SOME OF ITS SIMPLER COMPOUNDS

The family. Carbon stands at the head of a family of elements in the fourth group in the periodic table. The resemblances between the elements of this family, while quite marked, are not so striking as in the case of the elements of the chlorine family. With the exception of carbon, these elements are comparatively rare, and need not be taken up in detail in this chapter. Titanium will be referred to again in connection with silicon which it very closely resembles.

Occurrence. Carbon is found in nature in the uncombined state in several forms. The diamond is practically pure carbon, while graphite and coal are largely carbon, but contain small amounts of other substances. Its natural compounds are exceedingly numerous and occur as gases, liquids, and solids. Carbon dioxide is its most familiar gaseous compound. Natural gas and petroleum are largely compounds of carbon with hydrogen. The carbonates, especially calcium carbonate, constitute great strata of rocks, and are found in almost every locality. All living organisms, both plant and animal, contain a large percentage of this element, and the number of its compounds which go to make up all the vast variety of animate nature is almost limitless. Over one hundred thousand definite compounds containing carbon have been prepared. In the free state carbon occurs in three allotropic forms, two of which are crystalline and one amorphous.

Crystalline carbon. Crystalline carbon occurs in two forms,β€”diamond and graphite.

1. Diamond. Diamonds are found in considerable quantities in several localities, especially in South Africa, the East Indies, and Brazil. The crystals belong to the regular system, but the natural stones do not show this very clearly. When found they are usually covered with a rough coating which is removed in the process of cutting. Diamond cutting is carried on most extensively in Holland.

The density of the diamond is 3.5, and, though brittle, it is one of the hardest of substances. Black diamonds, as well as broken and imperfect stones which are valueless as gems, are used for grinding hard substances. Few chemical reagents have any action on the diamond, but when heated in oxygen or the air it blackens and burns, forming carbon dioxide.

Lavoisier first showed that carbon dioxide is formed by the combustion of the diamond; and Sir Humphry Davy in 1814 showed that this is the only product of combustion, and that the diamond is pure carbon.

The diamond as a gem. The pure diamond is perfectly transparent and colorless, but many are tinted a variety of colors by traces of foreign substances. Usually the colorless ones are the most highly prized, although in some instances the color adds to the value; thus the famous Hope diamond is a beautiful blue. Light passing through a diamond is very much refracted, and to this fact the stone owes its brilliancy and sparkle.

Artificial preparation of diamonds. Many attempts have been made to produce diamonds artificially, but for a long time these always ended in failure, graphite and not diamonds being the product obtained. The French chemist Moissan, in his extended study of chemistry at high temperatures, finally succeeded (1893) in making some small ones. He accomplished this by dissolving carbon in boiling iron and plunging the crucible containing the mixture into water, as shown in Fig. 58. Under these conditions the carbon crystallized in the iron in the form of the diamond. The diamonds were then obtained by dissolving away the iron in hydrochloric acid.

Fig. 58 Fig. 58

2. Graphite. This form of carbon is found in large quantities, especially in Ceylon, Siberia, and in some localities of the United States and Canada. It is a shining black substance, very soft and greasy to the touch. Its density is about 2.15. It varies somewhat in properties according to the locality in which it is found, and is more easily attacked by reagents than is the diamond. It is also manufactured by heating carbon with a small amount of iron (3%) in an electric furnace. It is used in the manufacture of lead pencils and crucibles, as a lubricant, and as a protective covering for iron in the form of a polish or a paint.

Amorphous carbon. Although there are many varieties of amorphous carbon known, they are not true allotropic modifications. They differ merely in their degree of purity, their fineness of division, and in their mode of preparation. These substances are of the greatest importance, owing to their many uses in the arts and industries. As they occur in nature, or are made artificially, they are nearly all impure carbon, the impurity depending on the particular substance in question.

1. Pure carbon. Pure amorphous carbon is best prepared by charring sugar. This is a substance consisting of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, the latter two elements being present in the ratio of one oxygen atom to two of hydrogen. When sugar is strongly heated the oxygen and hydrogen are driven off in the form of water and pure carbon is left behind. Prepared in this way it is a soft, lustrous, very bulky, black powder.

2. Coal and coke. Coals of various kinds were probably formed from vast accumulations of vegetable matter in former ages, which became covered over with earthy material and were thus protected from rapid decay. Under various natural agencies the organic matter was slowly changed into coal. In anthracite these changes have gone the farthest, and this variety of coal is nearly pure carbon. Soft or bituminous coals contain considerable organic matter besides carbon and mineral substances. When heated strongly out of contact with air the organic matter is decomposed and the resulting volatile matter is driven off in the form of gases and vapors, and only the mineral matter and carbon remain behind. The gaseous product is chiefly illuminating gas and the solid residue is coke. Some of the coke is found as a dense cake on the sides and roof of the retort. This is called retort carbon and is quite pure.

3. Charcoal. This is prepared from wood in the same way that coke is made from coal. When the process is carried on in retorts the products expelled by the heat are saved. Among these are many valuable substances such as wood alcohol and acetic acid. Where timber is abundant the process is carried out in a wasteful way, by merely covering piles of wood with sod and setting the wood on fire. Some wood burns and the heat from this decomposes the wood not burned, forming charcoal from it. The charcoal, of course, contains the mineral part of the wood from which it is formed.

4. Bone black. This is sometimes called animal charcoal, and is made by charring bones and animal refuse. The organic part of the materials is thus decomposed and carbon is left in a very finely divided state, scattered through the mineral part which consists largely of calcium phosphate. For some uses this mineral part is removed by treatment with hydrochloric acid and prolonged washing.

5. Lampblack. Lampblack and soot are products of imperfect combustion of oil and coal, and are deposited from a smoky flame on a cold surface. The carbon in this form is very finely divided and usually contains various oily materials.

Properties. While the various forms of carbon differ in many properties, especially in color and hardness, yet they are all odorless, tasteless solids, insoluble in water and characterized by their stability towards heat. Only in the intense heat of the electric arc does carbon volatilize, passing directly from the solid state into a vapor. Owing to this fact the inside surface of an incandescent light bulb after being used for some time becomes coated with a dark film of carbon. It is not acted on at ordinary temperatures by most reagents, but at a higher temperature it combines directly with many of the elements, forming compounds called carbides. When heated in the presence of sufficient oxygen it burns, forming carbon dioxide.

Uses of carbon. The chief use of amorphous carbon is for fuel to furnish heat and power for all the uses of civilization. An enormous quantity of carbon in the form of the purer coals, coke, and charcoal is used as a reducing agent in the manufacture of the various metals, especially in the metallurgy of iron. Most of the metals are found in nature as oxides, or in forms which can readily be converted into oxides. When these oxides are heated with carbon the oxygen is abstracted, leaving the metal. Retort carbon and coke are used to make electric light carbons and battery plates, while lampblack is used for indelible inks, printer's ink, and black varnishes. Bone black and charcoal have the property of absorbing large volumes of certain gases, as well as smaller amounts of organic matter; hence they are used in filters to remove noxious gases and objectionable colors and odors from water. Bone black is used extensively in the sugar refineries to remove coloring matter from the impure sugars.

Chemistry of carbon compounds. Carbon is remarkable for the very large number of compounds which it forms with the other elements, especially with oxygen and hydrogen. Compounds containing carbon are more numerous than all others put together, and the chemistry of these substances presents peculiarities not met with in the study of other substances. For these reasons the systematic study of carbon compounds, or of organic chemistryas it is usually called, must be deferred until the student has gained some knowledge of the chemistry of other elements. An acquaintance with a few of the most familiar carbon compounds is, however, essential for the understanding of the general principles of chemistry.

Compounds of carbon with hydrogen,β€”the hydrocarbons. Carbon unites with hydrogen to form a very large number of compounds called hydrocarbons. Petroleum and natural gas are essentially mixtures of a great variety of these hydrocarbons. Many others are found in living plants, and still others are produced by the decay of organic matter in the absence of air. Only two of them, methane and acetylene, will be discussed here.

Methane (marsh gas) (CH4). This is one of the most important of these hydrocarbons, and constitutes about nine tenths of natural gas. As its name suggests, it is formed in marshes by the decay of vegetable matter under water, and bubbles of the gas are often seen to rise when the dead leaves on the bottom of pools are stirred. It also collects in mines, and, when mixed with air, is called fire damp by the miners because of its great inflammability, damp being an old name for a gas. It is formed when organic matter, such as coal or wood, is heated in closed vessels, and is therefore a principal constituent of coal gas.

Preparation. Methane is prepared in the laboratory by heating sodium or calcium acetate with soda-lime. Equal weights of fused sodium acetate and soda-lime are thoroughly dried, then mixed and placed in a good-sized, hard-glass test tube fitted with a one-holed stopper and delivery tube. The mixture is gradually heated, and when the air has been displaced from the tube the gas is collected in bottles by displacement of water. Soda-lime is a mixture of sodium and calcium hydroxides. Regarding it as sodium hydroxide alone, the equation is

NaC2H3O2 + NaOH = Na2CO3 + CH4.

Properties. Methane is a colorless, odorless gas whose density is 0.55. It is difficult to liquefy, boiling at -155Β° under standard pressure, and is almost insoluble in water. It burns with a pale blue flame, liberating much heat, and when mixed with oxygen is very explosive.

Davy's safety lamp. In 1815 Sir Humphry Davy invented a lamp for the use of miners, to prevent the dreadful mine explosions then common, due to methane

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