The best solvents for rubber are carbon bisulphide, benzol and mineral naphtha, carbon tetrachloride and chloroform.
There is a vast amount of literature on the subject, but in spite of the difficulty of conceiving a luminous carbon vapour at the temperature of an ordinary carbon flame, the evidence seems to show that no other element is necessary for its production as it is found in the spectrum of pure carbon tetrachloride and certainly in cases where chlorine is excluded.
Considerable interest is attached to the remarkable series of hydrocarbons obtained by Gomberg (Ber., 1900, 33, p. 3150, et seq.) by acting on triphenylmethane chloride (from triphenylmethane carbinol and phosphorus pentachloride, or from carbon tetrachloride and benzene in the presence of aluminium chloride) and its homologues with zinc, silver or mercury.
Suppose a water molecule is going to react with the carbon tetrachloride.
Lengyel, Ber., 1869, 2, P. 54), 4CHC13+302= 40001 2 +2H 2 O+2C1 2 i or most conveniently by heating carbon tetrachloride with fuming sulphuric acid (H.