The Explosion of Gases in Glass Vessels

Abstract

WHEN Prof. Lothar Meyer was visiting Manchester a few years ago (on the occasion of the meeting of the British Association), he surprised me by saying that it was his custom in lecture to explode mixtures of ethylene and other hydrocarbons with oxygen in glass cylinders, some 10 to 12 inches long by 1½ to 2 inches in diameter (if I remember rightly), and that he had never had an accident. I suppose I did not sufficiently conceal my surprise, for he immediately demanded that we should go to the laboratory and repeat the experiment. Not having a mixture of ethylene and oxygen ready, I could not accept the challenge on the spot. The issue was therefore changed. Prof. Lothar Meyer said that he would fire a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen in a thin glass test-tube without breaking it. I confess I was sceptical, until I saw him do it time after time without injury. He argued that if the thin test-tube would withstand the explosion of hydrogen and oxygen, a thick glass cylinder would withstand the more violent explosion of a hydrocarbon. Nevertheless I ventured to warn him against trying the experiment with either acetylene or with cyanogen, the two gases I had found to explode more violently than any others, especially with a small quantity of oxygen. Prof. Meyer's recent accident with acetylene and oxygen has led him to warn chemists against the danger of that mixture. I would wish to add to that warning that the danger is equally great, if not greater, with a mixture of cyanogen and oxygen.