The Last Stoic

We are told the air we breathe is 79% nitrogen and 20% oxygen, with the other 1% made up with the noble gases. The classic classroom experiment which apparently proves this is one where a burning candle stands in a dish of water. A glass shade is placed over the candle and the flame is extinguished. Condensation of water vapour inside the glass pulls a vacuum (though the idea it pulls a vacuum is a controversial one). The water occupies an area that is about one-fifth of the glass, so we say the oxygen used in the combustion occupied one-fifth of the air. When the air inside the glass is tested it is found to be nitrogen, so we say that the other four-fifths of the air are nitrogen. I’m not so sure.

There are a number of reasons why I don’t think the air is made up with 79% nitrogen. First off, we find 79% nitrogen after combustion has taken place. Are we really that sure that there was 79% nitrogen before the combustion?

Secondly, I think the common air is a water vapour. I think water is made up of carbon and oxygen. In this new theory, water has an atomic weight of 22 g/mol. In terms of volume, I imagine elemental water to be made up by two halves – one half carbon, and the other oxygen.

One half of water is carbon weighing in at 6 g/mol, with oxygen making up the rest at 16 g/mol. In water, I think we would see these two halves unite to become one indivisible whole – an element.

I think that the air under the glass before combustion was water vapour with an atomic weight of 22 g/mol, and after the air has been “phlogisticated” by the combustion process , we now find the air is nitrogen gas with an atomic weight of 14 g/mol. It looks like the air has lost 8 g/mol, which is a conspicuous amount because the weight ratio of water is 8:1; 8 parts oxygen to 1 part hydrogen.

I think this important because although the atomic weight of water is given to us as 18, this figure stands for a FULL volume. I think of water as being made up by half volumes with an atomic weight of 9. We may be splitting hairs here, but this could be important in helping us to understand the nature of oxygen. I don’t think the density of oxygen in water should be taken simply as 16 g/mol, but rather as being two halves, each with the value of 8 g/mol.

Whether we use the atomic weight of water as 9, or 18, it is important to remember that this figure represents the atomic weight of DECOMPOSED water. According to Priestley, the atomic weight of water is 22, and I think this figure represents LIQUID water. If we apply our reasoning so far that oxygen is made up by two equal parts, then it would mean the same thing for the make up of water. The atomic weight of water is not simply 22 g/mol, but is made up by two parts, each with the atomic weight of 11 g/mol.

Nitrogen is curious in that it looks just like elemental water after it has lost half its weight in oxygen. I think that nitrogen at 14 g/mol, previously existed as elemental water at 22 g/mol, but has then been reduced by losing half its oxygen (8g/mol). In my mind, nitrogen appears as a bloated bag of black water.

This means that nitrogen (14 g/mol) is made up by 6 carbon (6 g/mol) and oxygen (8 g/mol). As a weight ratio (3:4), that’s exactly the same for carbon monoxide. What similarities do carbon monoxide and nitrogen share? I wonder why it is that carbon monoxide can be ignited, and nitrogen cannot? What makes it so difficult for nitrogen to be “cracked”?

If I was to summise where we are so far, then it would be the emergence of nitrogen as a water-like compound made out of carbon and oxygen. Strangely enough, this is by no means a new idea.

I found this paper in the National Library of New Zealand. It is headed under the “Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 1868-1961″, and the article is entitled “Discovery of Argon”. What it says is no doubt fascinating. I’m pretty sure I’ve read this article before, but only now am I truly aware of its significance. You can find the full article here:
http://rsnz.natlib.govt.nz/volume/rsnz_29/rsnz_29_00_000870.html

“The compound character of atmospheric nitrogen had, however, long been suggested, and even to some extent demonstrated, by the older chemists, for we find that Berzelius, a contemporary of Davy, satisfied that it was a compound body, was under, the impression that it was associated with an inflammable, base combined with oxygen, for which he proposed the name Nitricon [or possibly Nitricum]. But he is said to have distrusted or abandoned this hypothesis in consequence of experiments made by Davy, who also believed that atmospheric nitrogen was a compound body, of which oxygen formed an element, and endeavoured, but in vain, to detach the latter by means of the vapour of potassium.

Mr. David Low, of Edinburgh, who published an important treatise on the “Simple Bodies of Chemistry,” in 1856, also treated atmospheric nitrogen as a compound substance, and mentioned that, from its known characters, the same opinion had long been entertained, but that, as all attempts to decompose it had failed.”

I think the article reveals some of the controversy surrounding the compound nature of nitrogen at the time of its discovery. Looking for more background, I waltzed over to our ever faithful companion Google, and punched in “Simple Bodies of Chemistry”. It came up with an article in the “Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal”. The article is entitled “On Isomeric Transmutation, and the Views recently published concerning the compound nature of Carbon, Silicon, and Nitrogen.” It’s dated 1844 and was written by George Wilson, M.D., Lecturer on Chemistry, Edinburgh. You can find it here:
http://www.archive.org/stream/edinburghnewphil37edin/edinburghnewphil37edin_djvu.txt

“I propose, in the following Memoir, to offer some observations on the views recently published by Dr Samuel Brown, Mr Knox, and Mr Rigg, concerning the compound nature of silicon, nitrogen, and carbon.

Water, e.g. is the only body containing oxygen and hydrogen, in the proportion of eight parts by weight of the former to one of the latter ; common salt is the only substance, with thirty-five parts of chlorine to twenty-three of sodium, and so with other compounds.”

So it’s not just nitrogen which has been accused of being a compound – but silicon aswell! I’ve tried to not get too hung up on sentences, such as “elemental reduction by mutual isomeric transmutation”, because, quite frankly, I don’t understand the sentence. I’ve since learned that the existence of more than one compound with the same molecular composition is called isomerism. I wanted to try and remain focused on the compound nature of nitrogen, but this doesn’t seem possible just yet without examining the relationship nitrogen has with silicon, and other elements.

“Dr Brown is the only chemist who has had faith and courage enough to test the reality of Elemental Isomerism, by endeavouring to transmute one of the elements into another. This, he believes, he has succeeded in doing in the case of carbon and silicon.

According to Dr Brown, an atom of silicon consists of 4 atoms of carbon ; but four times six is 24, not 22.22. If, therefore, transmutation by isomeric synthesis of carbon into silicon occur, it must, according to this view, be accompanied by a destruction of matter equal to the difference between 24 and 22.22.”

Now I was a little surprised here because according to the periodic table, the atomic weight of silicon is given as 28 g/mol, and not 22.22 g/mol. I think 22 g/mol is an important value because it just so happens to be the atomic weight of water.

The author goes on to illustrate how it’s possible that carbon can be transmuted into silicon, by explaining away a bit of math. This is actually true, the atomic weight of carbon can be an integral multiple of 12. Thus, it appears Wilson is suggesting that carbon is basically a compound structure built out of smaller carbon structures.

“Let the received atomic weight of silicon, 22.22, be diminished by removal of the decimals, and made the round number 22. Such an alteration will, not improbably, be made by chemists, apart from all consideration of the question of transmutation. Then divide the received atom of carbon, 6, by 3, a liberty which would be conceded by many of my brethren, and it becomes 2 ; of which silicon is a multiple by the whole number 11. 11 atoms of carbon might, by synthetic transmutation, become 1 atom = 22 silicon, without any difficulty in the way of atomic weights.”

This last bit of reducing the density of silicon by half from 22 to 11, is practically identical to what we did previously with elemental water, where the density of elemental water was reduced from 22 g/mol to two parts, each part with the atomic weight of 11 g/mol.

The next thing to do was google – “An Inquiry into the Nature of the Simple Bodies of Chemistry” – and to see where it got me. It turned up trumps on Googlebooks, with the book written by David Low, and it contains some of the most fascinating pages I have ever had the fortune to read. The pages take you back to a time and place of almost fairy-tale-like innocence, where chemistry was still roaming the garden for the rules it had to play with (though of course, older brother alchemy had been around for a long time previous to this). It gives a powerful insight into how the ideas which form our world were first panel-beaten into shape. But not least, Low is set to reveal something quite remarkable about the Universe around you.

“Not withstanding then, the extreme care which has been employed in determining the constitution of the diamond by combustion, it is just possible that a quantity of hydrogen may exist in combination with carbon, inappreciable by this mode of analysis, and that the diamond really may be classed with the hydro-carbons, which upon the present hypothesis, silicium [silicon] and alumium both are.”

I thought diamond was made from pure carbon? Is he suggesting that diamond is made up by both hydrogen and carbon, or that the hydrogen is hidden by the presence of carbon? I think his statement confirms the idea that hydrogen is an empty, or at least virtually empty, form of carbon.

It was here though, that I felt the first bomb being dropped when Low says that both silicon and aluminium are both hydrocarbons. It’s not simply nitrogen which is a compound, but also silicon and aluminium. For some this may be too difficult to swallow – but me? I’m all ears.

Then, Low tell us that nitrogen is a compound that resembles the oxide of carbon, and presumably he means carbon monoxide, and not carbon dioxide, because “it does not support combustion, but when ignited burns with a lambent blue flame.” He confirms for us that “it is a legitimate conclusion that nitrogen consists of carbon and oxygen”. If your world view has been visibly shaking so far, now see the whole thing get turned upside down aswell…

“I have proposed the hypothesis that oxygen may be resolved into two elements of a lower combining weight than itself, hydrogen and carbon… Oxygen consists of 2 parts by weight of hydrogen to 6 parts by weight of carbon.”

There you go. BOOM! Oxygen is a hydrocarbon! I’ve been suspicious of oxygen for a little while now. If oxygen was prime suspect in a murder case, I would be a detective going through its’ rubbish bin looking for discarded bloody items. I’m suspicious because hydrogen, under the modern interpretation of phlogiston theory, is supposed to be full of phlogiston. I don’t think it is. In previous posts I have suggested hydrogen is empty, and that it lacks phlogiston. Hydrogen appears to me to be the complete opposite of “phlogisticated”, which would pretty much make hydrogen a substance that was “dephlogisticated”

BUT dephlogisticated air is supposed to be oxygen, and is supposed to contain no phlogiston, and that is the reason why it is supposed not to burn. What is starting to emerge more and more is oxygen is actually rich in phlogiston. Has there been some kind of mix up at the taps? Is “dephlogisticated air” meant to represent hydrogen, and “inflammable air” oxygen?

“Although we cannot certainly say that oxygen has been decomposed, yet when electric sparks are passed in succession through it, a change ensues, and an odour is evolved, which indicates the formation of some principle or substance to which this odour is due. It has been termed ozone…”

Whenever I think of ozone I instantly think of Tesla. I used to associate ozone with pollution and holes over the Antartic, and people going to work on a bicycle. Now though, if ozone is mentioned, I always imagine Tesla surrounded in mists of crackling lightning flashes and the peculiar odour of ozone. My mind always engages a link between electricity and ozone.

I was interested to know the atomic weight of ozone. Most places will tell you the weight of ozone is 48, but ozone weighs only 24 times more than hydrogen. I consulted Google once more, and came across a book entitled “Meteorology Practical And Applied”, written by John William Moore. In it he writes that “a great number of experiments have given the atomic weight of ozone as 24, and consequently its molecular weight as 48″. For arguments sake, I think I’ll stick to the atomic weight.

In the article on the “Discovery of Argon”, the authour remarks that argon “is supposed to be a tri-atomic form of nitrogen, as ozone is a bi-atomic form of oxygen; and many circumstances already known—for example, its concurrent appearance in nature with nitrogen”. Bi-atomic? Text books today tell us ozone is tri-atomic, and that it is made up with three atoms of oxygen. I wonder what would happen if we played around with the idea that ozone was perhaps bi-atomic? The reason I prefer a bi-atomic structure is because of the Fujiwhara effect.

When I try to think of a bi-atomic structure in nature, I think of the Fujiwhara effect. The effect is named after Sakuhei Fujiwhara, the Japanese meteorologist who initially described it in a 1921 paper about the motion of vertices in water. The Fujiwhara effect or Fujiwhara interaction is a type of interaction between two nearby cyclonic vortices, causing them to appear to “orbit” each other. When the cyclones approach each other, their centers will begin orbiting cyclonically about a point between the two systems.

The picture below is of twin hurricanes Ione (left) and Kirsten (right) pinwheeling about the eastern Pacific during the 1974 Pacific hurricane season during a Fujiwhara interaction. This could be dramatically wrong, but at the moment, this is what I imagine a bi-atomic structure as. If the atomic weight of ozone was 24 g/mol, and it was bi-atomic, then ozone could be made up by two oxygen structures both weighing 12 g/mol.

NOAA-3 visible range VHRR image of Hurricanes Ione (left) and Kirsten (right.)

But let us return to the crux of what Low is saying. Low thinks that the oxygen captured in the decomposition of water “consists of 2 parts by weight of hydrogen to 6 parts by weight of carbon”. Therefore – in the case of water – one part hydrogen in weight represents the ratio of 3 parts carbon in weight.

“If nitrogen be resolvable into carbon and oxygen, it is likewise, upon the present hypothesis resolvable into hydrogen and carbon; for oxygen upon this hypothesis is resolvable into hydrogen and carbon.

Nitrogen therefore appears to differ from oxygen, by containing a larger proportion of carbon, the proportion by weight of this element to hydrogen being in nitrogen as 6 to 1, and in oxygen as 3 to 1. Thus the difference between these two bodies, so widely diffused and generally associated, may be ascribed simply to the different ratio in which the constituent elements of each are combined…”

Thus, Low has transformed oxygen and nitrogen into hydrocarbons, and has changed our world forever. Low has used a constant density for carbon as 6 g/mol, even though he accepts the proportions by weight are different for nitrogen (6 to 1) and for oxygen (3 to 1).

Okay, now I want to get my grubby mitts on water and to apply these formulas to it, and see what comes up. The atomic weight of decomposed water is 9; that is, hydrogen with an atomic weight of 1 added to oxygen with an atomic weight of 8. This would give you the formula of H3C2 (the value of carbon here is 3) for a half volume of decomposed water.

If you remember at the start of this post we learned that the atomic weight of liquid water is 11 for a half volume. That is, carbon with an atomic weight of 3 added to oxygen with an atomic weight of 8. This makes the formula for liquid water H2C3 (the value for carbon being 3). Thus, water is a hydrocarbon, and a half volume has the formula H2C3, and the atomic weight of 11. Therefore, a full volume of liquid water has the atomic weight of 22 g/mol, and the formula H4C6 (C=3), or H4C3 (if C=6).

This is wonderful as we can now compare the formula for decomposed water (H3C2) with the formula for composed water (H2C3), and it becomes very apparent about what it is that differs between them. It looks like the hydrogen from decomposed water is transformed into carbon in the composition of liquid water, and if the reaction is reversed, carbon from composed water is exchanged for hydrogen in the decomposition of water.

If that wasn’t enough, what Low has to say in the following two paragraphs was enough to blow my boots off:

“If carbonic acid consist of the same elements as nitrogen, namely CO + O, it is not an extravagant hypothesis that some provision exists for resolving carbonic acid into the elements of which the atmosphere consists, namely nitrogen and oxygen.

For carbonic acid is continually ascending from the Earth into the atmosphere….. and therefore it is not an extravagant supposition, that a natural provision has existed, and does exist, for converting carbonic acid into the essential constituents of the existing atmosphere.”

And quite right. A mechanism must exist in nature that converts carbon dioxide back into the breathable atmosphere. I don’t think that the atmosphere is strictly nitrogen and oxygen though. I think the atmosphere is a water vapour which, in theory, is made up by nitrogen and oxygen. In summary, I think something in the atmosphere is converting carbon dioxide into water. Is it possible that ozone plays an important role in this conversion?

I think nitrogen (14 g/mol) is elemental water (22 g/mol) with half its volume of oxygen (8 g/mol) missing. Therefore, combining nitrogen with another half volume of oxygen should give you water. In terms of formula, nitrogen is written as H2C2 (C=6), and a full volume of water is H4C3 (C=6). A half volume of oxygen is written as H2C (C=6). If we add the nitrogen (H2C2) to the oxygen (H2C), the formula for water (H4C3) is exactly what we get!

Unfortunately, the copy I have found of Low’s book has a number of chapters missing. I do however, get a real sense of the isomeric relationships which he reveals between “elements”. It was Lavoisier who overthrew the phlogiston theory and established the concept of elements as substances which cannot be further decomposed. As I have come to trust the ideas of Lavoisier less and less, I also find that I lack the ability to trust the idea of indivisible elements. The entire periodic table no longer appears as a series of very distinct substances, but rather as a list of hydrocarbonic compounds which differ due to density.

What remains for me to end this post are Low’s thoughts on silicium (silicon). There’s no doubt he finds an intense similarity between silicon and aluminium. He writes that “the combining weight of aluminum is 14, or a multiple of that of silicium; and that accordingly, the two bodies are isomeric.”

Low continues to say that “if we were to admit the equivalent of silicium to be 7, or a multiple of 7, then silicium might be represented by HC, or a multiple of HC.” The atomic weight of silicon is listed as 28 – a multiple of 7. I am struck by the significance of the simplicity of the formula for silicon. If one was looking for a simple building block of creation, then I think silicon could be a possible contender. Low appears to confirm this with his next paragraph:

“If, in any former state of the globe [our planet], the aqueous portion predominated, as there is reason to believe it did, over the solid, we might perhaps believe, that one of the means of diminishing the volume of water, has the combination of its hydrogen with the molecules of carbon to form silicium, and of its oxygen with the silicium generated to form silica; for HO + C = HC + O, ex hypothesi, silica.”

Silica, of course is sand. It seems quite strange to think of sand as being the direct result of a reaction between carbon and water. Low is describing the transformation of water into sand, and if I’m understanding theory so far, the possibility that sand can be turned into water. Rather poetically, the front cover of Low’s book is furnished with a photograph of sand-dunes in a desert somewhere, like an oasis waiting to be discovered.

I also like that Low calls carbon “the primary element”. I think carbon is another name for phlogiston, and I think phlogiston is extremely close to the very substance of the Universe itself – the aether. Thanks to David Low and his book, we now have the means to explore, in formula, exactly how the Universal substance creates the substance of the Universe.

Many thanks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujiwhara_effect
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:Ymj4rBb2VqgJ:www.chemistry.sfu.ca/assets/uploads/file/Course%2520Materials%252009-3/chem%2520121%2520Surrey/LECTU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond
http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/si.htm
http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mainzv/exhibit/lavoisier.htm

RADIUM AND RADIO-ACTIVE
SUBSTANCES
Their Application Especially to Medicine -
BY
CHAS. BASKERVILLE, Ph. D.,
Professor of Chemistry and Diredlor of the Laboratory, College
of the City of New York, formerly of the University
of North Carolina.
Published by
Williams, Brown & Earle
918 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA., U. S. A.

From what we have learned there appears to be little in
the suggestion that radio-activity may supplant chemicals used
for the preservation of food.

http://www.archive.org/stream/radiumradioactiv00baskrich/radiumradioactiv00baskrich_djvu.txt

In 1755 Joseph Black is credited with discovering “fixed air”. It was named as such because it was fixed or trapped in certain organic compounds. Black first obtained it by heating the mineral limestone (calcium carbonate) until it decomposed into a gas and left behind lime (calcium oxide). The gas given off could be made to recombine with calcium oxide to form calcium carbonate again. Today we know this gas or “fixed air” as carbon dioxide (CO2).

Black also showed that when calcium oxide was allowed to stand in air, it turned slowly to calcium carbonate. From this he deduced that there were small quantities of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Thing is, there seems to be a very small amount of carbon dioxide in the air we breathe – it’s something like 0.03%. Carbon dioxide simply does not seem to exist in the air.

The following extract is taken from Joseph Priestley’s treatise of 1796 ~ “Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston, and the Decomposition of Water”. In it, Priestley confirms the difficulty of extracting carbon dioxide from the air. He also reveals the phlogisticated nature of carbon dioxide.

“Fixed air is procured in great abundance in animal respiration. It is true that fixed air is procured by exposing lime-water to atmospherical air, but it is never procured by this means in air confined in any vessel. There must, for this purpose, be an open communication with the atmosphere, but fixed air will be procured in great abundance by breathing air contained in the smallest receiver, and especially if the air be dephlogisticated. It must therefore be formed by phlogiston, or something emitted from the lungs, uniting with the dephlogistcated air which it meets there.”

I think Priestley was a little more than intrigued by fixed air. I wonder why it is that lime-water is affected by atmospherical air, and not the air “confined in any vessel”. I wonder if the figure of 0.03% for carbon dioxide is taken from the atmosphere or a confined vessel?

In a series of experiments Priestley exposes something about carbon dioxide that I, as yet, have not seen noted by any other experimenters. Priestley said that he had found that fixed air “contained half its own weight in water”. According to science textbooks, the atomic weight of carbon dioxide is 44 g/mol.

Now I find this fascinating as Priestley appears to be telling us the atomic weight of water. I don’t think the atomic weight of water is 9, as defined by adding the atomic weight of hydrogen (1) to oxygen (8), because I suspect the hydrogen we find outside water is empty of phlogiston and is not directly the same stuff that exists in water. I think water is rich in phlogiston. I think phlogiston has something to do with carbon.

Half the weight of carbon dioxide is 22 g/mol. Is the atomic weight of elemental water 22 g/mol? If we know that water consists of oxygen at 16 g/mol, then the missing half of water weighs 6 g/mol. On the periodic table, it is lithium with an atomic weight of 6.94 g/mol. I’ll be honest, I was hoping to see something of carbon here, and not lithium. Ooh, erm… this is awkward.

Not to fear though. It’s true, the atomic weight of carbon is given as 12 g/mol, but it’s not necessarily always the case. When carbon is measured in compounds where it is present in greater amounts than 12, it is hence always found in multiples of 12. For example, ethane (C2H6) contains 2 carbon atoms at 24 g/mol, and benzene (C6H6) contains 6 carbon atoms at 72 g/mol. The atomic weight of carbon cannot be greater than 12, BUT it is possible that it could be an integral submultiple of 12, such as 6, 4, or 3.

In trying to understand how this is possible, I came across Wikibooks and I chanced upon a really helpful page entitled ~ “Chemical Principles/Are Atoms Real? From Democritus to Dulong and Petit”. It’s a brief outline of the difficulties faced by pioneering chemists in trying to quantify compounds, to deduce the atomic weight of the periodic table. They did not have an enviable task as the elements they unearthed from compounds are swimming in awkward soups of weight ratios.

I think it gives me a bit of scope in realising the potential for mistakes in working with these ratios. We are, after all, only human. It also gives me a little faith in being able to play around with my own ideas, and to insert some of these ideas into a field as well established as physics, without being overwhelmed by the feeling that I am too small, too inadequate, and too ridiculous. You can find the site here, thanks to:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chemical_Principles/Are_Atoms_Real%3F_From_Democritus_to_Dulong_and_Petit

The site also features a wonderful quote from the German chemist Friedrich Wöhler, whom in 1835 said that “organic chemistry just now is enough to drive one mad. It gives me the impression of a primeval tropical forest, full of the most remarkable things, a monstrous and boundless thicket, with no way to escape, into which one may well dread to enter.” After only a little thought so far regarding weight ratios, and the way they richochet and rattle around my brain, I find it easy to sympathise with him. Weight ratios seem to have the ability of swerving any of the applied mathematics you throw at them.

It is possible then that water is made up of carbon and oxygen. I think the reason we don’t see carbon when we decompose water is because it is consumed in the reaction. The carbon is used up and leaves nothing but an empty shell in the form of hydrogen.

What happens then to the other half of the carbon dioxide compound? If one half is water – what is the other substance which weighs 22? Well, that could be another water atom. Or, if we refer to the periodic table, that substance might even be sodium. Could carbon dioxide be a compound made up of oxygen, carbon and sodium?

Carbon monoxide (CO) has an atomic weight of 28 g/mol. If we then deduct this new atomic weight of water (22 g/mol), we are left with 6 g/mol. Carbon monoxide could well be made up with water plus an extra dollop of carbon. This would mean that carbon monoxide contained 16 g/mol of oxygen, with a total of 12 g/mol of carbon. In text books, the weight ratio of carbon to oxygen in carbon monoxide is given as 3 to 4, which so far, coincides nicely.

In terms of volume though, 2 mol of carbon are burned in one mol of oxygen to give 2 mol of carbon monoxide. This means carbon monoxide is made up two-thirds carbon and one-third oxygen. If you burn 2 mol of carbon in 2 mol of oxygen you obtain 2 mol of carbon dioxide. The mixture for carbon dioxide is 50/50 oxygen and carbon. Based on this, I think carbon monoxide is more phlogisticated than carbon dioxide.

Science had to explain the weight of carbon dioxide (44 g/mol). They did this by adding an oxygen atom (16 g/mol) to a carbon monoxide molecule (28 g/mol). I think they may have painted over something.

If you decompose 2 mol of carbon dioxide you get 2 mol of carbon monoxide and 1 mol of oxygen. For the oxygen to have become available, I think it may have been part of a water atom. This would suggest that carbon dioxide is a compound made up with 2 water “atoms”. In the process of decomposition, one of the atoms is broken down into its two components – oxygen and carbon. The oxygen is given off, but the carbon is absorbed by the other water atom and it becomes carbon monoxide.

I think that the reason that hydrogen is so light is because it contains none, or hardly any, phlogiston. BUT, carbon monoxide (28 g/mol) appears to be lighter than carbon dioxide (44 g/mol) even though it contains a higher volume of carbon. I wonder why carbon dioxide is more dense than carbon monoxide?

I wanted to know the atomic weight of the air. From what I’ve seen on the web, it appears that most of the time science books only calculate the weight of the air. They use the figures of 79% nitrogen and 20% oxygen which work out to make the atomic weight of air something like 28g/mol. This site illustrates the method for calculating the atomic weight of air beautifully:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/molecular-mass-air-d_679.html

I then found a site which carries out an experiment which physically measures the weight of the air. They found that the mass of a litre of air is about 1 g. By volume, one mol of gas represents 22.4 litres at standard conditions. That means that according to this experiment, the atomic weight of air is 22.4 g/mol! That’s practically the atomic weight of water – and more specifically – water vapour. You can find this experiment here, thanks to :
http://www.practicalphysics.org/go/Experiment_612.html

The atomic weight of oxygen is nearly 3 times that of the carbon found in water, but in terms of volume, I suspect it is 50/50. Surely the two working together as elemental water thus become indivisible?

How can carbon dioxide at 44 g/mol exist in air that weighs 22.4 g/mol? I’d say that carbon dioxide weighs twice as much as air. Carbon dioxide ain’t going anywhere but down and hitting the ground! I found a site which takes the fact carbon dioxide is heavier than air and then proceeds to really hammer it home:
http://ocii.com/~dpwozney/carbondioxidequotes.htm

“One of the most serious hazards occurs when volcanoes emit large quantities of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air and collects in low spots, displacing air in these locations. Hundreds of people have died of carbon dioxide asphyxiation near volcanoes in the past two decades, most of them in Cameroon, Africa, and in Indonesia.”
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Emissions/Publications/OFR95-85/OFR95-85.html

Mind, we’ve all seen how carbon dioxide is collected from a candle as it rises from the flame. How exactly does it get up there if it’s twice the weight of air? Carbon dioxide gets a lot of bad press for its ability to climb up high into the atmosphere and mess about as a greenhouse gas. How does it get up there? How does it stay up there?

According to this new theory, the atomic weight of water is almost exactly the same as the air. I think this illustrates that air IS vaporous water. The obvious difference between liquid water and water vapour is density. Liquid water is around 1700 times more dense than water vapour. In other words, liquid water expands some 1700 times to become water vapour.

This suggests that the reason warm air rises is because it has a lower density than the colder air. The reason for this low density could be that the warm air has expanded. Right now, I’m thinking dreamily about bubbles rising in a fizzy carbonated drink. According to atomic weight the carbon dioxide should just sit at the bottom – but it doesn’t. The carbon dioxide gas can be quite plainly seen as bubbles which rise up and tickle my nose.

Carbon dioxide is also behind the science of how yeast helps bread to rise. Carbon dioxide expands in the dough to produce gaseous bubbles. So yeast produces carbon dioxide? I would like to thank the following site whose explanation I have borrowed: http://www.nyhallsci.org/biochem/content/educators/bread-educators.pdf.

“A scoop of packaged yeast with a scoop of sugar are mixed in a tube and placed in some warm water. After 2 minutes, bubbles rise from the bottom of the tube as the yeast metabolizes the sugar into carbon dioxide and ethanol. When bread is made the yeast metabolizes the sugars from the flour, and makes carbon dioxide bubbles. These bubbles make the dough rise, and are later seen as the holes in bread.

Cakes rises differently. The chemical reaction between the acid and the base in baking powder, or the reaction between baking soda and an acid, also generates carbon dioxide gas.”

Now my mind is thinking about some school experiment, where a raisin is in a glass of coke. The raisin rises to the surface of the drink as it floats on bubbles beneath it. Once it reaches the surface, the bubbles burst, the raisin loses its support, and it falls to the bottom of the glass. The raisin then collects more bubbles which send it floating back up to the surface. My thanks to Steve Spangler Science who have kindly put on a show of the dancing raisins:
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/dancing-raisins-the-bubble-lifter

I get the feeling this is saying something about how warm air rises and how cold air falls. Warm air expands and rises, and then once it reaches the top, the bubble bursts, it condenses, and it comes back down to earth. What are we describing then – some kind of motor? Are we living in a fizzy drink? Can this in any way be applied to the forces moving through the tubular ring of the atomic torus?

This comes as nothing more than a quirky aside, but for me, the thing that is conspicious about the number 22 is the fact it is not divisible by the numbers 12, 6, 4 or 3. What does this mean? I don’t know. Probably nothing. Or it could be important.

There’s also a bit of mysticism surrounding the number 22. In numerology, the number 22 is known as the “master builder” and is usually symbolized by a mason or some craftsman working hard and diligently on a large scale project. The Hebrew Aleph-Beit has 22 letters. The Jews believe the letters of the alphabet are the “building blocks” of creation.

Part II to follow.

Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-86) excerpts from Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire:

Where this phlogiston has gone to during the circulation of the blood, I leave to others to ascertain. The attraction which the blood has for phlogiston cannot be so strong as that with which plants and insects attract it from the air, and then the blood cannot convert air into aerial acid; still it becomes converted into an air which lies midway between fire-air and aerial acid, that is, a vitiated air; for it unites neither with lime nor with water after the manner of fire-air, and it extinguishes fire, after that of aerial acid. But that the blood really attracts the inflammable substance I have an additional experiment to prove, since I have removed phlogiston by help of my lungs from inflammable air, and have converted this into vitiated air.
http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/scheele77.html

I’ve fallen asleep on my horse. When I wake up and look around me, I suddenly realise we have entered the dusty plains belonging to old alchemist country. I can’t simply say that water is an element, without being forced to draw conclusions about the other ancient elements – fire, air and earth. What did the ancients understand about the Universe which we don’t?

My thanks for the photo:
http://oldcoyote.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/tumbleweed_004.jpg

Just as hydrogen burns in oxygen, it also burns in chlorine. Hydrogen burns in chlorine to give hydrogen chloride, a colourless gas. It fumes, or “smokes” when exposed to moist air and forms a dense fog when you blow your breath over it. Hydrogen chloride is very soluble in water; the solution is hydrochloric acid. An old name for it is muriatic acid.

The theory so far is that water is an element, and that oxygen and hydrogen are actually two halves of a “water atom”. I think that hydrogen and oxygen are dipolar vortices, and that oxygen performs a cyclonic action in relation to the anticyclonic action of hydrogen. I’m curious as to the nature of chlorine and if it too has a cyclonic action.

The atomic weight of chlorine is 35.5 g/mol. That’s over two times the weight of oxygen (16 g/mol). Chlorine is a green gas which has the power of bleaching and disenfecting. Ordinary combustibles do not burn it. Pure chlorine gas does, however, support combustion of organic compounds such as hydrocarbons, although the carbon component tends to burn incompletely, with much of it remaining as soot.

Chlorine was first prepared and studied in 1774 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, and therefore he is credited for its discovery. He called it “dephlogisticated muriatic acid air”. It might be worth noting that around this time that oxygen was referred to as “dephlogisticated air”.

In a previous post I wondered if acids are formed due to a lack of phlogiston. Basically, I think nitric acid is formed because hardly any phlogiston (in the form of nitrogen) is available in the solution. It could be that the cyclonic action of oxygen, in its’ hunger for phlogiston, makes the solution acidic.

If I follow this train of thought, then it’s possible that hydrogen chloride gas is acidic for the same reasons. The chlorine hungers for phlogiston, which hydrogen alone is unable to supply because it is nothing but an empty bag. When hydrogen chloride is dissolved in water it forms hydrochloric acid. According to this theory hydrochloric acid should be neutralized by the addition of more phlogiston.

A salt is any compound which can be derived from the neutralization of an acid and a base. When acid reacts with a base it forms a salt and water. For example, reacting hydrochloric acid with sodium hydroxide produces the salt sodium chloride and water. Both sodium chloride and pure water are considered “neutral”. The sea water in our oceans have a pH of 7.2 and being very well buffered, there is little variation from ocean to ocean. Sea water, though a little basic, could also be considered as neutral.

Common table salt is sodium chloride. It is broken up by electrolysis into sodium and chlorine. Does this mean that salt is somekind of element? I find it suggestive that the suffix “-lysis” comes from the Greek stem meaning to loosen or split up. I imagine sodium as being a form of hydrogen which has been fattened on carbon. In other words, I think sodium is a hydrogen “bag” that is full of phlogiston. It appears then that in sodium chloride, the sodium and the chlorine balance one another.

Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) also known as lye and caustic soda, is a caustic metallic base. It is used in many industries, mostly as a strong chemical base in the manufacture of pulp and paper, textiles, drinking water, soaps and detergents and as a drain cleaner. Pure sodium hydroxide is a white solid. I envision the sodium contained in sodium hydroxide as being so rich in phlogiston that it overpowers oxygen’s cyclonic exertions.

A chloralkali process always implies the electrolysis of common salt or sodium chloride. Depending on the method, the chloralkali process can be used to produce hydrogen, chlorine and sodium hydroxide. The term chloralkali refers to the two chemicals (chlorine and an alkali) which are simultaneously produced as a result of the electrolysis of a salt water. The most common chloralkali process involves the electrolysis of aqueous sodium chloride (a brine) in a membrane cell. There follows a more text book explanation of what happens in the chloralkali process:

“In the membrane cell, the anode and cathode are separated by an ion-permeable membrane. Saturated brine is fed to the compartment with the anode (the anolyte). A DC current is passed through the cell and the NaCl splits into its constituent components. The membrane passes Na+ ions to the cathode compartment (catholyte), where it forms sodium hydroxide in solution. The chloride ions are oxidised to chlorine gas at the anode, which is collected, purified and stored. Hydrogen gas and Hydroxide ions are formed at the cathode.”
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Chloralkali_process

I think hydrogen is a waste product after the release of phlogiston. I think that the chloralkali process is removing chlorine from the salt water and leaving more phlogiston in the solution. It would appear that sodium is thus able to form a compound with the weaker oxygen to form sodium hydroxide. In sodium hydroxide, I think sodium could be a strong anticyclone in union with the weak cyclonic oxygen. If this is the case, then they could be dipolar vortices but of different sizes.

If you tried to get electric current to pass through pure water it simply would not happen. Electricity will not pass through water unless it contains an electrolyte. The most familiar electrolytes are acids, bases, and salts, which ionize when dissolved in such solvents as water. Many salts, such as sodium chloride, behave as electrolytes when dissolved in water.

We are told that water does not burn because water is considered to be the burnt ashes of hydrogen. Phlogiston theory maintains that things do not burn because they have no phlogiston. Phlogiston theory – or at least as I understand it – maintains that water is rich in phlogiston. I consider hydrogen as the true ashes of water, and indeed, as the true ashes of combustion.

If water is rich in phlogiston, then phlogiston theory dictates that water can actually burn. Or at least not so much the water, but the phlogiston it contains is combustible. The phlogiston in elemental water is not easily accessible because it is locked away inside a “water atom”, but once that atom is cracked open – then the phlogiston is released and available for combustion.

I don’t believe water is made up with oxygen and hydrogen. I think it’s made up with oxygen and something that is a little more phlogisticated than empty hydrogen. I’m dying to find out what exactly it is which makes up water so that I can find out its true atomic weight.

Many thanks:

http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/17.html
http://web.me.com/dtrapp/periodic.f/phlogiston.html http://msnucleus.org/membership/html/k-6/wc/oceans/4/wcoc4_2a.html
http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ch20/faraday.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine
The First Year of Science By John C. Hessler
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:lAuQL022GqcJ:www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/Forschung/FFF/Workshop
The Encyclopaedia Britannica: a dictionary of arts, sciences, and …, Volume 5 By Thomas Spencer Baynes
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081006052411AAGgcIh
http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele011.html
Chlorine and hydrogen chloride By Assembly of Life Sciences (U.S.). Committee on Medical and Biologic Effects of Environmental Pollutants
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts173.html
http://www.medscape.com/druginfo/monograph?cid=med&drugid=3972&drugname=Alka-Seltzer+Gold+Oral&monotype=monograph&secid=6
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/183neutral.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloralkali_process
http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/bioforum/1996-August/020670.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid

Something is troubling me about hydrogen. Phlogiston theory appears to suggest that hydrogen, or “inflammable air”, is full of phlogiston. The way I’ve worked with the theory so far is that hydrogen is made-up in the same way as nitrogen, or “phlogisticated air”. I’ve so far imagined hydrogen as a big bloated bag of phlogiston – but is it?

Phlogisticated air was common air which had drawn the phlogiston from burning substances. Phlogisticated air no longer had any attraction for phlogiston, or any power in supporting combustion. Air, according to the theory, was merely the receptacle for phlogiston.

After a series of experiments, Cavendish had made the deduction that “phlogisticated air appears to be nothing else than the nitrous acid united to phlogiston”. He goes on to say that “nitrogen is nothing else than the nitric acid deprived of oxygen.”

Nitric acid (HNO3), also known as aqua fortis and spirit of nitre, is a highly corrosive and toxic strong acid that can cause severe burns. If we are to follow Cavendish’s line of reasoning, then nitrogen is actually a compound of hydrogen and nitrogen, which if you think about it, is a little odd. It’s saying that nitrogen is not simply nitrogen, but is also hydrogen.

Critics of the hydrogen economy are quick to point out that hydrogen is not an energy source, but rather an energy carrier. Hydrogen can store and deliver usable energy, but it doesn’t typically exist by itself in nature; it must be produced from compounds that contain it.

I think hydrogen acts something like an anticyclonic weather system. Anticyclonic weather systems are high pressure systems. I also think hydrogen acts a bit like a bag for phlogiston. Hydrogen is therefore not phlogiston per se, but something phlogiston can be found in. So, what we percieve as the element nitrogen is actually a substance stuffed inside hydrogen. I think that substance could be vapourized carbon (phlogiston).

There already exists a compound made of hydrogen and nitrogen, and it is called ammonia. In industry, ammonia is synthesized by heating the reaction of hydrogen gas and nitrogen gas over a catalyst at high temperatures, in a process known as the Haber-Bosch process. The most important use of ammonia is in the synthesis of nitric acid, an ingredient in fertilizers and explosives.

Our bodies also make ammonia. Most ammonia in the body forms when protein is broken down by bacteria in the intestines. The liver normally converts ammonia into urea, which is then eliminated in urine. Ammonia levels in the blood rise when the liver is not able to convert ammonia to urea. This may be caused by cirrhosis or severe hepatitis.

I wanted to return to the experiment where a burning candle stands in a dish of water. When we burn the candle and then place a glass shade over it – phlogiston theory dictates that the burning phlogiston saturates the air inside the glass, which leaves no further place for more phlogiston to escape to, and so the flame goes out (this differs greatly from current theory which maintains that the flame is extinguished because it runs out of oxygen).

When the flame is extinguished, water condenses inside the glass and it pulls a vacuum – water is sucked up from the dish and up into the space underneath the glass. Something like 20% of the space inside the glass is taken-up by the water. In this experiment we find the other 79% of the air trapped under the glass is nitrogen, and 1% other gases (including CO).

Phlogiston theory maintains that the nitrogen present in the air inside the glass is air that has been saturated with phlogiston. Nitrogen was referred to as “phlogisticated air”. Nitrogen is air that is full to capacity with vapourized carbon. Nitrogen will not support combustion. I don’t think that because the air inside the glass is found to be 79% nitrogen, this means that the atmosphere is also 79% nitrogen. Maybe it’s not quite that simple.

Another place where nitrogen turns up is in the composition and decomposition of water with an electric spark. In the reaction of oxygen with hydrogen it is not as simple as saying that they make water. In some cases it is not pure water, but a nitrous acid which is produced. Nitrous acid (molecular formula HNO2) is a weak and monobasic acid known only in solution and in the form of nitrite salts. Nitrous acid readily absorbs oxygen from the air and is converted into nitric acid. Nitric acid is highly corrosive.

I have been haunted by the following words of Priestley. They are taken from his article “Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston, and the Decomposition of Water” of 1796, and can be found here thanks to:
http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/phlogiston.html

“When dephlogisticated [oxygen] and inflammable air [hydrogen], in the proportion of a little more than one measure of the former to two of the latter, both so pure as to contain no sensible quantity of phlogisticated air [nitrogen], are inclosed in a glass or copper vessel, and decomposed by taking an electric spark in it, a highly phlogisticated nitrous acid is instantly produced; and the purer the airs are, the stronger is the acid found to be.”

Priestley asserts that a “highly phlogisticated nitrous acid” is present. What is Priestley trying to say exactly? What has phlogiston got to do with the acidifying principle? Into this soup I shall add some words of Cavendish on the composition and decomposition of water, taken from his treatise of 1785, “Philosophical Transactions” :
http://membres.lycos.fr/veloclub/biographies/cavendish/air.htm

“It may be worth remarking, that whereas in the detonation of nitre with inflammable substances, the acid unites to phlogiston, and forms phlogisticated air, in these experiments the reverse of this process was carried on; namely, the phlogisticated air united to the dephlogisticated, which is equivalent to being deprived of its phlogiston, and was reduced to nitrous acid.

In the above-mentioned paper I also gave my reasons for thinking that the small quantity of nitrous acid, produced by the explosion of dephlogisticated and inflammable air, proceeded from a portion of phlogisticated air mixed with the dephlogisticated, which I supposed was deprived of its phlogiston, and turned into nitrous acid, by the action of the dephlogisticated air on it, assisted by the heat of the explosion.”

Cavendish states that the phlogisticated air is turned into nitrous acid by the action of the dephlogisticated air upon it. In other words, nitrogen is turned into nitrous acid by the action of oxygen in a heated reaction. It’s a bit like the nitrogen was cracked open by the oxygen, and in doing so, phlogiston spills out to fuel the combustion. Cavendish continues to say that “it is evident that dephlogisticated air is able to deprive phlogisticated air of its phlogiston, and reduce it into acid, when assisted by the electric spark; and therefore it is not extraordinary that it should do so when assisted by the heat of the explosion.”

If we follow this line of reasoning, then it appears an acid is produced due to the lack of phlogiston. If more phlogiston was available, then we would have a sample which was more like pure water. Priestley seems to confirm this by noting that the “purer the airs are, the stronger the acid is found to be”. Priestley thus continues to piece these results together:

“If phlogisticated air be purposely introduced into this mixture of dephlogisticated and inflammable air, it is not affected by the process, though, when there is a considerable deficiency of inflammable air, the dephlogisticated air, for want of it, will unite with the phlogisticated air, and, as in Mr. Cavendish’s experiment, form the same acid. But since both kinds of air, viz. the inflammable and the phlogisticated, contribute to form the same acid, they must contain the same principle, viz. phlogiston.”

Now I think at last I am starting to get a grasp. I think this confirms that pure hydrogen gas does not contain phlogiston. I think that once hydrogen becomes “phlogisticated” it starts to resemble nitrogen. Nitrogen without phlogiston is hydrogen. Hydrogen over-saturated with phlogiston is nitrogen.

Electrolysis of water is the decomposition of water (H2O) into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen gas (H2) due to an electric current being passed through the water. In a properly designed cell hydrogen will appear at the cathode, and oxygen will appear at the anode. I think the electric current passing through the water is made up from phlogiston in the water.

I have experimented with the idea that phlogiston is taken up by the anode, moves along conductors, passes through the battery, and then goes down the cathode where it then completes a loop by passing back through the water to the anode. I think that energy from the loop is lost in the form of heat, or in other words, phlogiston is lost in the form of heat. I think you run out of electric current when you run out of phlogiston. The electric current IS phlogiston.

I think hydrogen is produced at the cathode because the phlogiston it once possessed as one half of elemental water has been given up to supply the current. It’s as if the hydrogen has been discarded as a waste product. If hydrogen is a waste product, then what exactly was it when it was previously in water? If hydrogen was phlogisticated while in water, then it is highly suggestive that it is not hydrogen in pure water, but something that is phlogisticated, something like nitrogen.

When hydrogen gas and oxygen gas are recombined to make water, I think that phlogiston is released by the spark or flame used to drive the reaction. If enough phlogiston is available we get pure water, if not, then we get nitrous acid. I found the following words of Cavendish, and his experiments appear to confirm what I am suggesting.

Cavendish states “that when a mixture of inflammable and dephlogisticated air is exploded, in such proportions that the burnt air [nitrogen] is not much phlogisticated, the condensed liquor contains a little acid which is always of the nitrous kind, whatever substance the dephlogisticated air is procured from; but if the proportion be such that the burnt air is almost entirely phlogisticated, the condensed liquor is not at all acid, but seems pure water, without any addition whatever.”

In another experiment he writes “that when inflammable and common air are exploded in a proper proportion, almost all the inflammable air, and near one-fifth the common air, lose their elasticity and are condensed into dew. And by this experiment it appears that this dew is plain water, and consequently that almost all the inflammable air is turned into pure water”.

When hydrogen is burnt in a combustion engine in the presence of air, water is the only product given off. There’s obviously phlogiston present in the air – but is it in the proportions that we have been led to expect? Nitrogen is “air” (or at least a component of air) which has been over-saturated with phlogiston. Maybe we can expect to find 79% of the air in a glass to be nitrogen after the combustion of a candle, but perhaps the air we breath is a little less saturated with phlogiston.

Many thanks:

http://download.franklin.com/cgi-bin/franklin/ebookman_free_preview?4hsci10
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-10/939404666.Ch.r.html
http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/ammonia
http://www.whatislife.com/reader2/Metabolism/pathway/nitrogen.html
http://www.marcodonders.com/Ammonia/ammonia.html
The Gases of the Atmosphere – The History of Their Discovery By William Ramsay
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-06/927694651.Eg.r.html
Chemistry for Beginners By Lincoln Phelps
http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/guide/hydrogen/index.cfm
Researches on the medical properties and applications of nitrous oxide … By George Jacob Ziegler

Berthollet was born in the then Italian region of Savoy. He qualified as a physician at the University of Turin, moving to Paris to study chemistry. As private physician in the household of the duke of Orléans, he carried out research in the laboratory at the Palais Royale. He was appointed inspector of dyeworks and director of the Gobelins tapestry factory 1784. He taught chemistry to Napoleon and went with him to Egypt 1798. There he observed the high concentration of sodium carbonate (soda) by Lake Natron on the edge of the desert. He reasoned that, under the prevailing physical conditions, sodium chloride in the upper layer of soil had reacted with calcium carbonate from nearby limestone hills – the beginning of his theory that chemical affinities are affected by physical conditions, in this case the heat and high concentration of calcium carbonate. In 1804 he became a senator but ten years later voted for the deposition of Napoleon.
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/biographies/mainbiographies/b/berthollet/1.html

A lump of charcoal is about 98% carbon. Phlogistonists believed that charcoal was virtually pure phlogiston. Some said that charcoal was surpassed only by hydrogen as a source of pure phlogiston. Charcoal is the blackish residue consisting of impure carbon obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. In the combustion of charcoal, temperatures of 600 to 1500 degrees C are reasonably easy to achieve. If we burn the charcoal in pure oxygen it produces only water, carbon dioxide and a small amount of ash.

Charcoal is a fuel made up of hydrocarbons. I see these hydrocarbons as anticyclonic vortices (hydrogen) which act like a bag full of carbon (phlogiston). I try to think of it as hydrogen fattened-up on carbon.

In the combustion process, I imagine it as oxygen being introduced to hydrogen to form elemental water. The hydrogen was over saturated with phlogiston (carbon) and the release of this phlogiston is activated by the hydrogen being joined by oxygen. The anticyclonic hydrogen and the cyclonic oxygen join together to form dipolar vortices, and a torus-shaped water atom is produced, which basically looks something like a ring donut. I think inside the vortex ring of this donut that the phlogiston is kicked into action, and it goes into something like a spin cycle.

A burning lump of charcoal also produces heat and light. Heat and light are waves in the aether. The movement of the phlogiston spinning around the vortex ring might also be responsible for generating waves in the aether. I imagine it as something like a little wobbling inflatable ring, or elastic band. Or even an underwater bubble-ring.

~~Photo of bubble ring courtesy of Joe Burch

I needed a gentle reminder of where we stand now, and so I’m going to lean back on a bit of text from Walter Fitzroy, below. You can find a copy of his letter here, thanks to:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/chang/nicholson_v2/Fitzroy.doc

“Phlogiston is present in all things that are combustible, and we are thankful that everything that contains phlogiston is not constantly in flames, and that it requires a release mechanism. I theorise that heat and fire are indeed release mechanisms for phlogiston and that it encourages phlogiston in the material to be released.”

So, according to Fitzroy, phlogiston is being released by the combustion process. I imagine a hydrocarbon contained in a fuel to be rich in phlogiston. I think that as the hydrocarbon begins the combustion process it joins oxygen to form water and releases phlogiston.

We are taught that colourless carbon monoxide is formed at the surface of the charcoal, and at base of the flame. Charcoal being the remains of burned wood, contains hydrocarbons that vaporize and produce a gas containing carbon monoxide. It is then said that the carbon monoxide burns with more oxygen to produce a blue flame.

I wonder if it’s possible that carbon monoxide is itself a combustion product? Rather than the carbon monoxide simply forming at the surface of the charcoal, maybe something else forms there first? This might help explain the invisible vapours which we find at the surface of the burning charcoal, and at the base of the flame.

Carbon monoxide gas apparently burns with a blue flame. I wanted to see this for myself and I managed to find a school experiment which blatantly shows the colour to be blue. My thanks to Blundell’s School for the demonstration:
http://www.rsc.org/Education/EiC/issues/2009March/ExhibitionChemistry.asp

I wanted to take a closer look at the base of the flame on our charcoal fire. Before we see the bluish flame at the base of the fire, we find at the very surface of the charcoal that there exist invisible vapours that are in the UV range. Some flame detection scanners use ultraviolet sensors. I borrowed the following extract from a descriptive piece on “Fireye UV flame scanners”:
http://www.fireye.net/pdf/detector/65-8058.pdf

“Choose a sighting location where the scanner will have an unobstructed view of the flame under all firing conditions. Greatest ultraviolet radiation is produced near the base of the flame in the area immediately ahead of the burner.”

These sensors are especially designed for application in hydrogen fires which can burn with an almost invisible flame. Pure hydrogen-oxygen flames burn in the ultraviolet colour range. Another danger with hydrogen fires is that they emit little radiant heat into the enviroment, therefore making infrared detectors somewhat obsolete. Is it possible that there is a hydrogen fire taking place at the surface of the burning charcoal?

According to this new theory (which is based on an old theory), hydrocarbons at the surface of the charcoal join oxygen from the air to form atomic water. This atomic water is absolutely brimming with phlogiston. I imagine the invisible vapours at the surface of the burning charcoal as somekind of water vapour that is rich in phlogiston. Hang on a mo’! Water brimming with phlogiston? Well, that sounds familiar. Indeed, it sounds a lot like the discussion in the previous post about methanol! Is it possible that a methanol-like fuel is produced at the surface of the charcoal during combustion?

Next up from the invisible vapours are the bluish flames, and then we have the yellow flames. If I run my hand over the yellow part of a flame it will blacken with soot – the carbon has not as yet fully combusted. If I run my hand above the tip of the flame, my hand will most certainly get hot, but it doesn’t get black because there is no soot – the carbon has been fully combusted.

In combustion processes, bluish flames are indicative of sootless flames. The high intensity of the blue flame consumes the fuel without producing soot. The blue portion of the flame is the most intense part of the flame (that’s why welders use it). As we move up from the blue part of the flame to the yellow part of the flame we find soot. One might suggest that the water atom is broken down at the blue flame to release its payload of phlogiston (soot).

When steam is superheated to about 1400 degrees C or more, the molecules of steam start splitting apart to form oxygen and hydrogen. That’s a temperature you will find in the blue part of the flame. It appears that our newly formed water atom is being cracked open, and phlogiston is released. The released phlogiston gives us the yellow part of the flame.

Incomplete combustion of charcoal produces carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. For complete combustion we have to introduce more oxygen. Complete combustion produces carbon dioxide and water. Carbon dioxide does not combust, it is a combustion product. Water does not combust either, but rather it is a product of combustion.

The temperatures in the luminous zone can be as cool as a few hundred degrees C, whereas the temperature in the blue part of the flame can be 1500 degrees C, or higher. If we were to add more oxygen to a yellow flame it should shrink and then combust with a blue flame. Under normal conditions, it looks like the blue part of the flame is absorbing more oxygen than the yellow part of the flame.

In the combustion of carbon monoxide you have carbon dioxide and water, which are the exact same products from the complete combustion of charcoal. One might argue that there is a striking similarity between hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, but apparently there’s no hydrogen onboard carbon monoxide. But I am reminded of something Priestley said about carbon dioxide.

Priestley said that “water makes up half the weight of carbon dioxide”. The atomic weight of carbon dioxide is 44 grams per mole. I suppose then that Priestley is saying that water in a carbon dioxide molecule weighs in at 22 grams per mole, and is then joined by something else at 22 grams per mole. Sodium weighs in at about 22 grams per mole. Is sodium making up the other half of carbon dioxide?

Indeed, Priestley said that water was “essential to the constitution of every kind of air”. I was just thinking that carbon monoxide has an atomic weight of 28 grams per mole. If half its weight was made up with water then it would leave something else which weighed about 14 grams per mole. It just so happens that nitrogen weighs 14 grams per mole. Is nitrogen making up the other half of carbon monoxide?

Phlogistonists long suspected nitrogen was a compound. Am I then to reason that nitrogen is a compound of water and phlogiston? That nitrogen is the movement of phlogiston as it circles around the vortex ring of a water atom? Is it the same thing for sodium?

I think phlogiston is made up of tiny particles of carbon that offer a resistance to the aether field. Further up the flame is the luminous zone where free carbon burns and releases the familiar light made up with yellows and reds. This is only an idea – so just roll with me – but I thought about the fact that sodium burns with a yellow flame. Is it possible that the phlogiston takes the form of sodium before it is vapourized into something else?

The bigger the hydrocarbon, the more likely you are to get a yellow, smokey flame. That would make carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide big hydrocarbons. In industry, they make methane from carbon dioxide and water, and you could look at it like they are watering down the strength of carbon dioxide to produce a reliable, household fuel. Is carbon dioxide a fuel source?

The products from a complete combustion of charcoal are carbon dioxide and water vapour. I think of the water has having all of the phlogiston removed by the combustion process. It’s as if the water vapour is the only evidence of a full combustion; that is, a water atom formed at the surface of the charcoal exits the flame after expending ALL of its phlogiston. Is carbon dioxide an incomplete combustion product?

Many thanks:

The history and present state of electricity: with original experiments By Joseph Priestley
Conduction of Electricity Through Gases and Radio-Activity By Robert Kenning McClung
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Origin_of_wind
http://amasci.com/wing/smring.html
http://www.astrosciences.info/Ring.html
http://www.meg.co.uk/courses/4.php
http://www.weinstall.ca/carbon_monoxide.htm
http://www.fao.org/docrep/X5328E/x5328e0b.htm
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem03/chem03609.htm
http://www.rimbach.com/scripts/Article/IHN/Number.idc?Number=128
http://www.science.co.il/PTelements.asp?s=Weight
http://www.chemguide.co.uk/organicprops/alkanes/oxygen.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=1144
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/JamesDanyluk.shtml
http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/oilburners06.html
http://www.bacharach-training.com/cozone/whatiscarbonmonoxide1.htm
http://leebor2.100webspace.net/carbon.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_ring