Nineteenth-century origins

Lumley, S. and Armstrong, P. 2004. Some of the nineteenth century origins of the sustainability concept. Environment, Development and Sustainability 6, 367-378. 

Hydrocarbons are divided into two mam classes aliphatic and aromatic This classifi cation dates from the nineteenth century when organic chemistry was devoted almost entirely to the study of materials from natural sources and terms were coined that reflected a substance s origin Two sources were fats and oils and the word aliphatic was derived from the Greek word aleiphar meaning ( fat ) Aromatic hydrocarbons irre spective of their own odor were typically obtained by chemical treatment of pleasant smelling plant extracts... 

Acetone was originally observed about 1595 as a product of the distillation of sugar of lead (lead acetate). In the nineteenth century it was obtained by the destmctive distillation of metal acetates, wood, and carbohydrates with lime, and pyrolysis of citric acid. Its composition was determined by Liebig and Dumas in 1832. 

The discovery that usehil chemicals could be made from coal tar provided the foundation upon which the modem chemical industry is built. Industrial chemistry expanded rapidly in the late nineteenth century in German laboratories and factories where coal-tar chemicals were refined and used in synthesis of dyes and pharmaceuticals. But coal-tar production has an eadier origin, dating back to the discovery by William Murdock in 1792 that heating coal in the absence of air generated a gas suitable for lighting. Murdock commercialized this technology, and by 1812 the streets of London were illuminated with coal gas (1). 

The original process of heating coal in rounded heaps, the hearth process, remained the principal method of coke production for over a century, although an improved oven in the form of a beehive was developed in the Durham-Newcastie area of England in about 1759 (2,26,28). These processes lacked the capabiHty to collect the volatile products, both Hquids and gases. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century, with the introduction of indirectiy heated slot ovens, that it became possible to collect the Hquid and gaseous products for further use. 

Figure 18.1 A crystal is built up from many billions of small identical units, or unit cells. These unit cells are packed against each other in three dimensions much as identical boxes are packed and stored in a warehouse. The unit cell may contain one or more than one molecule. Although the number of molecules per unit cell is always the same for all the unit cells of a single crystal, it may vary between different crystal forms of the same protein. The diagram shows in two dimensions several identical unit cells, each containing two objects packed against each other. The two objects within each unit cell are related by twofold symmetry to illustrate that each unit cell in a protein cr) stal can contain several molecules that are related by symmetry to each other. (The pattern is adapted from a Japanese stencil of unknown origin from the nineteenth century.)...

Review of Solutions in General. In the discussion of these various examples we have noticed at extreme dilution the prevalence of the term — In Xb, or alternatively — In yB. The origin of this common factor in many different types of solutions can be shown, as we might suspect, to be of a fundamental nature. For this purpose let us make the familiar comparison between a dilute solution and a gas. Since the nineteenth century it has been recognized that the behavior of any solute in extremely dilute solution is, in some ways, similar to that of a gas at low pressure. Now when a vessel of volume v contains n particles of a perfect gas at a lixed temperature, the value of the entropy depends on the number of particles per unit volume, n/v. In fact, when an additional number of particles is introduced into the vessel, the increment in the entropy, per particle added, is of the form... 

Mr. Vassallo added, We saw it as an opportunity to come up with a new flavor system, the next adopted by Americans—an alternative to die margarita, which is die number one cocktail in die country. The mojito originated in Cuba as a farmers drink in die late nineteenth century as Cuba s rum industry modernized, making the mojito as common as beer. Only the rich drank it widi ice and soda. The mojito s popularity in the United States coincides with an increased interest in Cuban-style rums. Cuban rums are unavailable. 

Indigo was originally made from two plants. One is woad, Isatis tinctoria, a native of Greece and Italy, and the other is indigo, Indigofera tinctoria, a native of India. At the end of the nineteenth century, German scientists synthesized the dye, and production from plant sources declined. Most of the dye today comes from China. 

The temperature dependence of a reaction rate lies in the rate constant and, as we shall see in Section 13.12, that temperature dependence gives valuable insight into the origins of rate constants. In the late nineteenth century, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius found that the plot of the logarithm of the rate constant (In k) against the inverse of the absolute temperature (1 IT) is a straight line. In other words,... 

The reasons for the introduction of the terms "lyophobic" (meaning fear of lye) and "lyophilic" (meaning love of lye) are even more obscure and appear irrelevant as they are virtually alternatives to the terms hydrophobic and hydrophilic. The terms originated in the early soap industry during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. In about 1850 soap was prepared by boiling a vegetable oil with an alkaline solution obtained from leaching wood ash with water. 

In Chapter 5.3, D. Dunn-Rankin discusses the shape of deflagrations in closed tubes and the conditions under which it assumes the form of a tulip. The propagation of a premixed flame in closed vessels has been studied from the nineteenth century. The tulip flame is an interesting example of flame-flow interaction originating from the Landau-Darrieus instability. 

Humans have used dyes to create color since the dawn of history. Until the mid-nineteenth century, all dyes were of natural origin. Many came from plants, such as indigo, a dark blue dye that was extracted from the leaves of a native East Indian plant. In 1856, the young English chemist William Perkin stumbled upon the first synthetic dye. Perkin was trying to synthesize quinine, a valuable antimalaria dmg. None of his experiments met with success. As he was about to discard the residue from yet another failed reaction, Perkin noticed that it was colored with a purple tinge. He washed the residue with hot alcohol and obtained a purple solution from which strikingly beautiful purple crystals precipitated. Perkin had no idea what the substance was or what reactions had created it, but he immediately saw its potential as a new dye. 

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