[47] This determination may be carried on in an apparatus like that mentioned in Note [13] of Chapter I.
[48] We will proceed to describe Dumas' method and results. For this determination pure and dry copper oxide is necessary. Dumas took a sufficient quantity of copper oxide for the formation of 50 grams of water in each determination. As the oxide of copper was weighed before and after the experiment, and as the amount of oxygen contained in water was determined by the difference between these weights, it was essential that no other substance besides the oxygen forming the water should be evolved from the oxide of copper during its ignition in hydrogen. It was necessary, also, that the hydrogen should be perfectly pure, and free not only from traces of moisture, but from any other impurities which might dissolve in the water or combine with the copper and form some other compound with it. The bulb containing the oxide of copper (fig. [26]), which was heated to redness, should be quite free from air, as otherwise the oxygen in the air might, in combining with the hydrogen passing through the vessel, form water in addition to that formed by the oxygen of the oxide of copper. The water formed should be entirely absorbed in order to accurately determine its quantity. The hydrogen was evolved in the three-necked bottle. The sulphuric acid, for acting on the zinc, is poured through funnels into the middle neck. The hydrogen evolved in the Woulfe's bottle passes through U tubes, in which it is purified, to the bulb, where it comes into contact with the copper oxide, forms water, and reduces the oxide to metallic copper; the water formed is condensed in the second bulb, and any passing off is absorbed in the second set of U tubes. This is the general arrangement of the apparatus. The bulb with the copper oxide is weighed before and after the experiment. The loss in weight shows the quantity of oxygen which entered into the composition of the water formed, the weight of the latter being shown by the gain in weight of the absorbing apparatus. Knowing the amount of oxygen in the water formed, we also know the quantity of hydrogen contained in it, and consequently we determine the composition of water by weight. This is the essence of the determination. We will now turn to certain particulars. In one neck of the three-necked bottle a tube is placed dipping under mercury. This serves as a safety-valve to prevent the pressure inside the apparatus becoming too great from the rapid evolution of hydrogen. If the pressure rose to any considerable extent, the current of gases and vapours would be very rapid, and, as a consequence, the hydrogen would not be perfectly purified, or the water entirely absorbed in the tubes placed for this purpose. In the third neck of the Woulfe's bottle is a tube conducting the hydrogen to the purifying apparatus, consisting of eight U tubes, destined for the purification and testing of the hydrogen. The hydrogen, evolved by zinc and sulphuric acid, is purified by passing it first through a tube full of pieces of glass moistened with a solution of lead nitrate next through silver sulphate; the lead nitrate retains sulphurette hydrogen, and arseniuretted hydrogen is retained by the tube with silver sulphate. Caustic potash in the next U tube retains any acid which might come over. The two following tubes are filled with lumps of dry caustic potash in order to absorb any carbonic anhydride and moisture which the hydrogen might contain. The next two tubes, to remove the last traces of moisture, are filled with phosphoric anhydride, mixed with lumps of pumice-stone. They are immersed in a freezing mixture. The small U tube contains hygroscopic substances, and is weighed before the experiment: this is in order to know whether the hydrogen passing through still retains any moisture. If it does not, then the weight of this tube will not vary during the whole experiment, but if the hydrogen evolved still retains moisture, the tube will increase in weight. The copper oxide is placed in the bulb, which, previous to the experiment, is dried with the copper oxide for a long period of time. The air is then exhausted from it, in order to weigh the oxide of copper in a vacuum and to avoid the need of a correction for weighing in air. The bulb is made of infusible glass, that it may be able to withstand a lengthy (20 hours) exposure to a red heat without changing in form. The weighed bulb is only connected with the purifying apparatus after the hydrogen has passed through for a long time, and after experiment has shown that the hydrogen passing from the purifying apparatus is pure and does not contain any air. On passing from the condensing bulb the gas and vapour enter into an apparatus for absorbing the last traces of moisture. The first U tube contains pieces of ignited potash, the second and third tubes phosphoric anhydride or pumice-stone moistened with sulphuric acid. The last of the two is employed for determining whether all the moisture is absorbed, and is therefore weighed separately. The final tube only serves as a safety-tube for the whole apparatus, in order that the external moisture should not penetrate into it. The glass cylinder contains sulphuric acid, through which the excess of hydrogen passes; it enables the rate at which the hydrogen is evolved to be judged, and whether its amount should be decreased or increased.
Fig. 26.—Apparatus employed by Dumas for determining the composition of water. Described in text.
When the apparatus is fitted up it must be seen that all its parts are hermetically tight before commencing the experiment. When the previously weighed parts are connected together and the whole apparatus put into communication, then the bulb containing the copper oxide is heated with a spirit lamp (reduction does not take place without the aid of heat), and the reduction of the copper oxide then takes place, and water is formed. When nearly all the copper oxide is reduced the lamp is removed and the apparatus allowed to cool, the current of hydrogen being kept up all the time. When cool, the drawn-out end of the bulb is fused up, and the hydrogen remaining in it is exhausted, in order that the copper may be again weighed in a vacuum. The absorbing apparatus remains full of hydrogen, and would therefore present a less weight than if it were full of air, as it was before the experiment, and for this reason, having disconnected the copper oxide bulb, a current of dry air is passed through it until the gas passing from the glass cylinder is quite free from hydrogen. The condensing bulb and the two tubes next to it are then weighed, in order to determine the quantity of water formed. Dumas repeated this experiment many times. The average result was that water contains 1253·3 parts of hydrogen per 10,000 parts of oxygen. Making a correction for the amount of air contained in the sulphuric acid employed for producing the hydrogen, Dumas obtained the average figure 1251·5, between the extremes 1247·2 and 1256·2. This proves that per 1 part of hydrogen water contains 7·9904 parts of oxygen, with a possible error of not more than 1⁄250, or 0·03, in the amount of oxygen per 1 part of hydrogen.
Erdmann and Marchand, in eight determinations, found that per 10,000 parts of oxygen water contains an average of 1,252 parts of hydrogen, with a difference of from 1,258·5 to 1,248·7; hence per 1 part of hydrogen there would be 7·9952 of oxygen, with an error of at least 0·05.
Keiser (1888), in America by employing palladium hydride, and by introducing various fresh precautions for obtaining accurate results, found the composition of water to be 15·95 parts of oxygen per 2 of hydrogen.
Certain of the latest determinations of the composition of water, as also those made by Dumas, always give less than 8, and on the average 7·98, of oxygen per 1 part of hydrogen. However, not one of these figures is to be entirely depended on, and for ordinary accuracy it may be considered that O = 16 when H = 1.