Paper, 'The determination of organic matter in air' by Thomas Carnelley and William Mackie

Description

Carnelley and Mackie write: 'The only methods hitherto proposed for determining the amount of organic matter in air are the two devised by the late Dr Angus Smith (“Air and Rain”). According to the first of these methods, a definite quantity of the air to be examined is slowly bubbled through a dilute solution of potassium permanganate of known strength until it is fully or considerably bleached, and in the latter ease the amount of undecomposed permanganate determined by oxalic acid. In the second method a known volume of air is bubbled through distilled water, and the latter examined for free and albuminoid ammonia by Wanklyn and Chapman’s process for water analysis. These methods are open to one or more of the following objections:— 1. The time required for a single determination is very considerable, and recessarily varies with the amount of organic matter present. 2. There is great uncertainty as to whether the organic matter has been fully absorbed and acted on by the permanganate in the first method, or absorbed by the water in the second. 3. It is difficult to determine the exact point of full bleaching, or to estimate by oxalic acid very small degrees of partial bleaching. 4. The methods are inapplicable (chiefly on the score of time and of the extent and complication of the apparatus required) in circumstances and places where such determinations are most desirable. Analyses, especially by the second method, cannot be completed on the spot, except in very rare cases, so that unless a large quantity of apparatus be taken, several consecutive determinations in a series of buildings or rooms is impossible (cf. De Chaumont, ‘Roy. Soc. Proc.,’vol. 23, 1875).'

Annotations in pencil and ink throughout.

Subject: Chemistry

Received and read 10 June 1886. Communicated by Henry Enfield Roscoe.

A version of this paper was published in volume 41 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'The determination of organic matter in air'.

Reference number

PP/9/5

Earliest possible date

1886

Physical description

Ink and graphite pencil on paper

Page extent

9 pages

Format

Manuscript