The ‘Volatile Copper Compound’ and its Effect on the Beilstein Test

Abstract

In previous publications^1,2 dealing with the ‘Volatile copper compound’, we reported that the unstable subliming cuprous salts of fatty acids (mainly that of formic acid) gave rise to effects which had been attributed to a copper carbonyl. (Reference was not made to the relevant work of Robinson and Stainthorpe³, as the paper was not accessible to us at that time.) These salts proved to be the intermediate thermal decomposition products of the corresponding cupric salts and also appeared in undefined circumstances where copper-containing materials and decomposing organic substances were heated in contact.