Cryoscopic irregularities of phenol

Abstract

The discovery and extended use of cryoscopic methods for solving the problems of physical chemistry is undeniably one of the features of recent developments in this science, and few other experimental methods can claim such general adoption in aiding investigation in all branches of the work. In particular a great deal of our knowledge of binary liquid mixtures has been gained by the use of this method, or of the related osmotic pressure methods which unfortunately require more complicated laboratory manipulation. Hence, it is strange that so little is understood about the laws on which these methods are based, or is known of the deviations therefrom which are becoming more numerous every year. And yet the osmotic laws have not been without their significance in the development of the chemistry of the last half century, for had Van't Hoff's theoretical deductions not explained osmotic phenomena in liquid mixtures so completely, his thermodynamic conception of liquid molecules would never have gained to rapidly its universal acceptance. It was as long ago as 1788 that Blagden first proved a part of Raoult's law by showing that the depression of freezing point caused by the addition of a soluble substance to pure water was proportional to the amount of the substance added. This discovery was allowed to go unemphasized for eighty years, until Rudorff again took up its study in 1861. Thence we read of de Coppet (1871), of the closer investigations of Raoult (1882), and of the period of intense activity immediately following this able experimenter.