Oxygen, reactions with potassium from

Beryllium, calcium, boron, and aluminum act in a similar manner. Malonic acid is made from monochloroacetic acid by reaction with potassium cyanide followed by hydrolysis. The acid and the intermediate cyanoacetic acid are used for the synthesis of polymethine dyes, synthetic caffeine, and for the manufacture of diethyl malonate, which is used in the synthesis of barbiturates. Most metals dissolve in aqueous potassium cyanide solutions in the presence of oxygen to form complex cyanides (see Coordination compounds). 

A number of chemiluminescent reactions may proceed through unstable dioxetane intermediates (12,43). For example, the classical chemiluminescent reactions of lophine [484-47-9] (18), lucigenin [2315-97-7] (20), and transannular peroxide decomposition. Classical chemiluminescence from lophine (18), where R = CgH, is derived from its reaction with oxygen in aqueous alkaline dimethyl sulfoxide or by reaction with hydrogen peroxide and a cooxidant such as sodium hypochlorite or potassium ferricyanide (44). The hydroperoxide (19) has been isolated and independentiy emits light in basic ethanol (45). 

Poloxamers are used primarily in aqueous solution and may be quantified in the aqueous phase by the use of compleximetric methods. However, a major limitation is that these techniques are essentially only capable of quantifying alkylene oxide groups and are by no means selective for poloxamers. The basis of these methods is the formation of a complex between a metal ion and the oxygen atoms that form the ether linkages. Reaction of this complex with an anion leads to the formation of a salt that, after precipitation or extraction, may be used for quantitation. A method reported to be rapid, simple, and consistently reproducible [18] involves a two-phase titration, which eliminates interferences from anionic surfactants. The poloxamer is complexed with potassium ions in an alkaline aqueous solution and extracted into dichloromethane as an ion pair with the titrant, tet-rakis (4-fluorophenyl) borate. The end point is defined by a color change resulting from the complexation of the indicator, Victoria Blue B, with excess titrant. The Wickbold [19] method, widely used to determine nonionic surfactants, has been applied to poloxamer type surfactants 120]. Essentially the method involves the formation in the presence of barium ions of a complex be-... 

Potassium reacts violently with the alcohols used for its destruction. This danger is linked to the fact that the potassium residues to be destroyed are exposed to oxygen and the destruction takes place in air. If the operation is carried out in inert gas and with potassium that is not exposed to air, the reaction is not dangerous. The danger of this reaction comes from the fact that potassium forms a KO2 superoxide easily, which oxidises the alcohol violently. 

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