SECT. VII.
Of the Combustion of Hydrogen Gas, and the Formation of Water.
In the formation of water, two substances, hydrogen and oxygen, which are both in the aëriform state before combustion, are transformed into liquid or water by the operation. This experiment would be very easy, and would require very simple instruments, if it were possible to procure the two gasses perfectly pure, so that they might burn without any residuum. We might, in that case, operate in very small vessels, and, by continually furnishing the two gasses in proper proportions, might continue the combustion indefinitely. But, hitherto, chemists have only employed oxygen gas, mixed with azotic gas; from which circumstance, they have only been able to keep up the combustion of hydrogen gas for a very limited time in close vessels, because, as the residuum of azotic gas is continually increasing, the air becomes at last so much contaminated, that the flame weakens and goes out. This inconvenience is so much the greater in proportion as the oxygen gas employed is less pure. From this circumstance, we must either be satisfied with operating upon small quantities, or must exhaust the vessels at intervals, to get rid of the residuum of azotic gas; but, in this case, a portion of the water formed during the experiment is evaporated by the exhaustion; and the resulting error is the more dangerous to the accuracy of the process, that we have no certain means of valuing it.
These considerations make me desirous to repeat the principal experiments of pneumatic chemistry with oxygen gas entirely free from any admixture of azotic gas; and this may be procured from oxygenated muriat of potash. The oxygen gas extracted from this salt does not appear to contain azote, unless accidentally, so that, by proper precautions, it may be obtained perfectly pure. In the mean time, the apparatus employed by Mr Meusnier and me for the combustion of hydrogen gas, which is described in the experiment for recomposition of water, Part I. Chap. VIII. and need not be here repeated, will answer the purpose; when pure gasses are procured, this apparatus will require no alterations, except that the capacity of the vessels may then be diminished. See Pl. IV. Fig. 5.
The combustion, when once begun, continues for a considerable time, but weakens gradually, in proportion as the quantity of azotic gas remaining from the combustion increases, till at last the azotic gas is in such over proportion that the combustion can no longer be supported, and the flame goes out. This spontaneous extinction must be prevented, because, as the hydrogen gas is pressed upon in its reservoir, by an inch and a half of water, whilst the oxygen gas suffers a pressure only of three lines, a mixture of the two would take place in the balloon, which would at last be forced by the superior pressure into the reservoir of oxygen gas. Wherefore the combustion must be stopped, by shutting the stop-cock of the tube dDd whenever the flame grows very feeble; for which purpose it must be attentively watched.
There is another apparatus for combustion, which, though we cannot with it perform experiments with the same scrupulous exactness as with the preceding instruments, gives very striking results that are extremely proper to be shewn in courses of philosophical chemistry. It consists of a worm EF, Pl. IX. Fig. 5. contained in a metallic cooller ABCD. To the upper part of this worm E, the chimney GH is fixed, which is composed of two tubes, the inner of which is a continuation of the worm, and the outer one is a case of tin-plate, which surrounds it at about an inch distance, and the interval is filled up with sand. At the inferior extremity K of the inner tube, a glass tube is fixed, to which we adopt the Argand lamp LM for burning alkohol, &c.
Things being thus disposed, and the lamp being filled with a determinate quantity of alkohol, it is set on fire; the water which is formed during the combustion rises in the chimney KE, and being condensed in the worm, runs out at its extremity F into the bottle P. The double tube of the chimney, filled with sand in the interstice, is to prevent the tube from cooling in its upper part, and condensing the water; otherwise, it would fall back in the tube, and we should not be able to ascertain its quantity, and besides it might fall in drops upon the wick, and extinguish the flame. The intention of this construction, is to keep the chimney always hot, and the worm always cool, that the water may be preserved in the state of vapour whilst rising, and may be condensed immediately upon getting into the descending part of the apparatus. By this instrument, which was contrived by Mr Meusnier, and which is described by me in the Memoirs of the Academy for 1784, p. 593. we may, with attention to keep the worm always cold, collect nearly seventeen ounces of water from the combustion of sixteen ounces of alkohol.