Contributions to the history of the phosphorus-bases / by Augustus William Hofmann.
- August Wilhelm von Hofmann
- Date:
- 1861
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Contributions to the history of the phosphorus-bases / by Augustus William Hofmann. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![PHOSPHORUS-ARSENIC-GROUP. Phospharsonium-salts. Salt of Ethylene-hexethylphospharsonium • (C2H4) (C2H5)3P t (C2 H5)3 As_ Br 2* ARSENIC-NITROGEN-GROUP. Arsammonium-salts. Salt of Ethylene-triethylarsammonium (C2 H4) „(c2 H5)3 As h3 n a. The experiments described in the preceding pages refer almost exclusively to the study of compounds belonging either to the phosphorus-series or to the phosphorus- nitrogen-series. Numerous analogous terms of the nitrogen-series, monatomic as well as diatomic, with which I have become acquainted in the course of my researches, have been left unnoticed in this memoir. I propose to examine the nitrogen-bodies in a special memoir; and I may here only remark that these substances, although differing in several points, nevertheless so closely imitate, in their general deportment, the corre- sponding terms of the phosphorus-series, that the picture which in the preceding pages I have endeavoured to delineate of the phosphorus-compounds, illustrates, in a great mea- sure, the deportment of the nitrogen-bodies. We meet here with the peculiar case of the study of the phosphorus-group being in advance of that of the nitrogen-series, whilst generally the investigation of the phosphorus-compounds was taken in hand only after inquiries in the nitrogen-series had furnished the prototypes to be copied. In conclusion, a few words about the further development of which the experiments described appear to be capable, and about the direction in which I propose to pursue the opened track. Conceived in its simplest form, the transition from the series of monatomic to that of diatomic bases may be referred to the introduction of a monochlorinated or monobromi- nated alcohol-radical into the ammonium-nucleus, the chlorine or bromine thus inserted furnishing the point of attack for a second molecule of ammonia. If in bromide of ethylammonium we imagine 1 equiv. of hydrogen in ethyl replaced by bromine, we arrive at the bromide of bromethyl-ammonium, which is capable of fixing a second mole- cule of ammonia, and of being thus converted into the dibromide of ethylene-diammo- nium, the latent bromine becoming accessible to silver-salts, [(C2 H, Br) H3 N] Bi+H3 N=[(C2 H4)» H6 NJ” Br2. The further elaboration of this reaction suggests two different methods for the con- struction of polyatomic bases of a higher order. In the first place, the number of ammonia-molecules to be incorporated in the new system may be increased by the gradually advancing bromination of the radical. By the further bromination of ethyl](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21309024_0130.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
