Heavy metal soap films as chromatographic adsorbents, and fatty acid products of petroleum oxidation

Part I. Oriented metal soap films are suggested here as providing surfaces with known properties for the study of chromatographic relations. The stability problem involved in using such surfaces for chromatography with organic solvents has been investigated. Ferric stearate films on silvered sand are hydrophobic, but were found unstable to organic solvents. Silver soap films however were found stable to such solvents under the same conditions. These were also found to be stable on surfaces of powdered copper. Suggestions are made for increasing the surface area, and thus the capacity of soap film absorbents.;Part II. Alox 425, a commercial mixture rich in long chain fatty acids, produced by the controlled oxidation of a Pennsylvania petroleum fraction has been studied with the view of using such mixtures as sources of particular fatty acid fractions or as individual acids. The mixture was separated using sodium bicarbonate into free and combined said fractions; the methyl eaters of the free acids were further fractionated on silica gel using benzene and methanol eluants. Five fractions with distinctive adsorption properties were obtained, differing mainly In their oxygen content. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).