Abstract
THE vapour-tension of liquid mixtures has been lately investigated by Herr Konowalow (Wied. Ann., No. 9) in the case of the first four members of the alcohol and the acid series, each mixed, in various proportions, with water. Curves were obtained by taking the percentages as abscissæ and the tensions as ordinates. The author finds that each mixture, to which a maximum or minimum of tension corresponds, has, at the temperature indicated, the same composition as its vapour. Thus liquid mixtures, with reference to distillation, are divisible into three groups—(a) Those whose curve of tension has neither a maximum nor a minimum; (b) Those whose curve has a maximum (e.g. propylic alcohol, butyric acid); (c) Those whose curve has a minimum (e.g. formic acid). Herr Konowalow shows, from a table of all the constant boiling mixtures known to him, that in all the boiling temperature of the mixture is either greater or less than those of both constituents, i.e. all the tension-curves have a maximum or a minimum. The existence of such a point seems, thus far, to be a necessary condition of the existence of a constant boiling mixture. These mixtures have not, apparently, a simple molecular constitution.
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Physical Notes . Nature 25, 231–232 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/025231a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/025231a0