Date of Award

9-1930

Degree Type

Bachelors Essay

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

Chemistry

First Advisor

John R. Koch

Abstract

Ethylene glycol is a compound possessing great interest, both from a theoretical and a practical standpoint. In its properties it lies midway between ethyl alcohol, C2H50H, and glycerol, C3H5(0H)3, the three compounds together forming an homologous series of alcohols.

A few years ago this substance was a scientific curiosity, produced solely by laboratory methods, and without any commercial value, although it had been known for more than sixty years. Today the manufacturers cannot produce enough glycol to satisfy the growing demand. The DuPont organization wanted to use it in a non-freezing dynamite. They could not obtain it. A Detroit automobile manufacturer wanted to equip his cars with it in winter, so that he could tell the customer that the car was ready to drive in any weather. He could not obtain the glycol, so urgently was it needed in other fields. Today ethylene glycol finds important uses in a variety of industries is being manufactured in ever-increasing quantities, and has a most promising future.

This rapid development in the use of glycol, but one of many similar accomplishments of modern chemical research, was responsible for stimulating interest in the present problem. A preliminary survey of the literature on the subject showed that, while much work had been done, there were many interesting fields for research on both the chemical and physical properties of glycol. Since, however, the largest and most important demand for glycol is based on its physical properties, the investigation of certain of these properties was taken as the subject for this thesis.

Comments

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the College of Liberal Arts of Marquette University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts

Download

Included in

Chemistry Commons

Share

COinS