From alkali-treated functions

The hydroxamic acid function in most alicyclic and aromatic compounds is stable to hot dilute acid or alkali, and derivatives cannot undergo normal base-catalyzed Lessen rearrangement. Di Maio and Tardella," however, have shown that some alicyclic hydroxamic acids when treated with polyphosphoric acid (PPA) at 176°-195° undergo loss of CO, CO.2, or H2O, in a series of reactions which must involve earlj fission of the N—0 bond, presumably in a phosphoryl-ated intermediate. Thus, l-hydroxy-2- piperidone(108) gave carbon monoxide, 1-pyrroline (119), and the lactams (120 and 121). The saturated lactam is believed to be derived from disproportionation of the unsaturated lactam. 

In 1821 Wohler discovered that a solid deposited from concentrated aqueous solutions of thiocyanic acid. The solid, which was called isoperthiocyanic acid (3-imino-5-mercapto-1,2,4-dithiazole) (361), formed a new product perthiocyanic acid (3,5-dimercapto-l,2,4-thiadiazole) (18) when treated with alkali and then acid. On storage perthiocyanic acid (18) readily reverted to isoperthiocyanic acid (361) (65AHC(5)119). The mechanisms of these interconversions are still not known with certainty but the transformations outlined in Scheme 130 are suggested. Wohler proposed the initial formation of a dimer of thiocyanic acid for which structure (359) appears resonable. Addition of the imine function of (359) to the nitrile function of HSCN would produce the trimer (360) which could readily eliminate hydrogen cyanide to produce isoperthiocyanic acid (361). 

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