Paper, 'On the electrolysis of dilute sulphuric acid and other hydrated salts' by John Hall Gladstone and Alfred Tribe

Description

Gladstone and Tribe write: 'On the 1st of March last a communication was presented to the Royal Society by Professor Frankland [see PP/3/9], in which, among other things, the reactions we had described as taking place in the charging and discharging of secondary batteries were confirmed. The author expressed these reactions, however, by formulæ founded on the electrolysis, not of H2SO4, but of hexabasic sulphuric acid, H6SO6, in accordance with the views of Bourgoin. The point of difference is a small one, but it led us to look into the papers of Bourgoin, and to examine the evidence upon which his views were based. The French chemist (“Ann. de Chimie,” 1868) treats of the electrolysis of sulphuric acid merely as an illustration of his method for determining the composition of hydrated Salts in solution generally. This method consists in electrolysing a given solution in a divided cell, analysing the liquid in each compartment at the close of the experiment, and, in the case of dilute sulphuric acid, collecting the- hydrogen set free. In the case of a solution of sulphuric acid, of course, the positive compartment may be expected to increase in strength as a consequence of the electrolytic action, and the negative compartment to decrease in strength in the same degree. Bourgoin calls the increase of the acid in the positive compartment α, and concludes that 2α represents the amount of sulphuric acid electrolysed. This conclusion rests on the well-known theoretical views of Grotthuss, and, did his theory express all that goes on in the electrolytic process, the method would readily discriminate between the actions represented by the following formulae.'

Annotations in pencil and ink. Includes one diagram of experimental apparatus.

Subject: Chemistry

Received 20 December 1883. Read 17 January 1883.

A version of this paper was published in volume 36 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'On the electrolysis of dilute sulphuric acid and other hydrated salts'.

Reference number

PP/4/21

Earliest possible date

1883

Physical description

Ink and graphite pencil on paper

Page extent

9 pages

Format

Manuscript
Diagram