Abstract
M. LOBRY DE BRUYN contributes a memoir of special interest to the current issue of the Recueil des Travaux Chimiques des Pays-Bas. It is not long since the distinguished Amsterdam chemist succeeded in preparing for the first time free anhydrous hydroxylamine, and now he announces that he has likewise been successful in isolating free hydrazine by a similar method. Eight years ago the important discovery of hydrazine was made by Prof. Curtius, and since that time the amount of knowledge which has been accumulated concerning the base and its compounds by Prof. Curtius and his assistants is so large that a separate volume might well be devoted to it. Nevertheless, the free anhydrous base itself has not hitherto been satisfactorily prepared; indeed it would now appear, in the light of M. de Bruyn's remarkable work, that it has not hitherto been in any way isolated. The hydrate of the base has been obtained in the pure state and fully described by Prof. Curtius, but in his later communications he has expressed the view that the free base is so unstable that most probably it is incapable of separate existence. The hydrate only is produced when the salts are decomposed by a caustic alkali, and even digestion in a sealed tube at 170° with anhydrous baryta, has failed to detach the water molecule from its combination with hydrazine. It appeared, however, to M. de Bruyn that the nature of the salts and other compounds of hydrazine rendered it scarcely probable that the base was less stable than hydroxylamine, and he considered it not unreasonable to hope that it might therefore be isolated in an analogous manner to the latter base, namely, by reacting upon the chloride with sodium methylate in methyl alcohol solution. The experiments made in this direction are only preliminary, but their result is so interesting that an account of them is at once published.
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TUTTON, A. Isolation of Free Hydrazine, N2H4. Nature 51, 544 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/051544a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/051544a0