Notes 1385Alkali Solubility of Alcoholyzed Cellulose.-Hydrolyzed cellulose is known to undergo extensive degradation by hot aqueous alkalies. Data given in Table I show that methanolyzed cotton cellulose does not undergo such an effect. This finding provides support for the view expressed by others that the loss of weight suffered by hydrocellulose in hot, dilute alkali is a function of reactivity, and not of solubility.12 Alkaline solutions heated with hydrocellulose become discolored, whereas when heated with alcoholyzed cellulose they show no discoloration.

Vol. 66 by the decarboxylation of oleanolic acid. Oxidaprepared by the decarboxylation and dehydration of norechinocystenol-A gives the ketone notegenation of oleanolic acid. chinocystenone-A, which is different from oleanone Stanford Univ., California

THEpreparation of nearly anhydrous alcohol by fractionation of mixtures of aqueous alcohol and benzene, whereby the water is removed as a ternary azeotrope with alcohol and benzene, is well known and widely used on the large scale. A variety of other methods for the dehydration of alcohol have been proposed, such as the use of anhydrous calcium chloride, the use of glycerol alone or in combination with hygroscopic salts, the use of metallic calcium, aluminum, or magnesium, etc. None of these other processes has met with the success of the distillation method in the presence of a liquid which yields an azeotropic mixture owing to the economy of operation which the latter process permits. The distillation process, however, reaches its maximum efficiency only on very large-scale operation, where continuous operation and automatic control can be applied.

No abstract

The aldolization of ethanal has been studied quite thoroughly and applied to the industrial production of crotonaldehyde and w-butanol. The preparation of mixed ketols, on the other hand, by the interaction of aldehydes and ketones in presence of alkaline reagents has not been developed satisfactorily.Because of the greater tendency of ethanal to react with itself than with acetone, acetaldol may turn out to be the main reaction product as was demonstrated by the writer.1 Since acetone also condenses with itself,2 diacetone alcohol may also be formed.