SOLVENTS AND DILUENTS 191
bleaching powder on alcohol or crude acetone. Although rapidly volatile^ the
vapors can be ignited only with difficulty. Mixed with alcohol, it is a good solvent
for cellulose acetate and, alone, is active on most resins, but it has little use com-
mercially. In all proportions it is miscible with most of the organic solvents and
with vegetable and mineral oils. When allowed to stand for a long time in the
light, it will slowly react with moisture to form hydrochloric acid and phosgene,
but if i per cent of alcohol is added, its decomposition is hindered. Chloroform
was discovered in 1831 by Liebig and Soubeiran, and its use as an anaesthetic in
1848 by an Englishman, Simpson.
Coal-Tar Hydrocarbons (see Solvents, classification).
Denatured Alcohol. Addition of poisonous or distasteful material to ethyl
alcohol so that it can not be safely used in the concoction of beverages, gives it
this name. The Bureau of Internal Revenue, Treasury Department of the United
States, in the Appendix to Regulations, no. 3, Formulae for Completely and Spe-
cially Denatured Alcohol> 1938, specifies the use of such materials as gasoline,
aliphatic isoalcohols, methyl isobutyl ketone, and organic hydrogenated materials
in three formulas for completely denatured alcohol which can be used without
restriction of sale. There are also given many special denaturing formulas em-
ploying such materials as methyl alcohol, benzol, ether, pyridine, animal oil,
acetone, and others, but such specially denatured alcohol can only be used tinder
close government regulation.
Detergent. Broadly this can be taken to mean any cleansing agent or anything
that aids in cleaning. Although soap has long been the common detergent in the
past, a large number of special materials has been developed recently for this
purpose. The most important is that group of compounds known as the sulphated
alcohols. These are sodium sulphuric esters of straight-chain fatty alcohols ranging
from eight to eighteen carbon atoms and higher. The cleansing action of any
detergent is caused by its ability to wet completely particles of dirt and to disperse
or deflocculate them and keep them in suspension so that they can be rinsed away.
(See Surface-Active Agent; also R. A. Duncan, * The New Detergents/ Industrial
and Engineering Chemistry, XXVI [1934], pp. 24-26.)
Diacetone Alcohol. When pure, this keto-alcohol, (CH3)2C(OH)CH2COCH3,
is a colorless liquid having a mint-like odor. It is made by the condensation of
acetone, and the commercial grade contains some uncondensed acetone and some
mesityl oxide. There is no sharp boiling point for diacetone alcohol; it distills
between 130° and i8o°C., about 85 per cent between 150° and 170°. It may
contain a trace of acetic acid, but the acidity should not exceed 0.02 per cent.
It is not miscible with the petroleum hydrocarbons but mixes completely with
water and with most organic solvents. The low vapor pressure (3.3 mm. Hg at
2o°C.) and low evaporation rate make it useful as an ingredient to retard the
drying of varnishes, to make them brush more easily, and to prevent blush.
General experience with it seems to indicate that its solvent action on dried