[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Siemens' apparatus for preparing ozone by means of a silent discharge.]
[1] This conclusion, deduced by me as far back as 1878 (_Moniteur Scientifique_) by conceiving the molecules of ozone (see later) as more complex than those of oxygen, and ozone as containing a greater quantity of heat than oxygen, has been proved experimentally by the researches of Mailfert (1880), who showed that the passage of a silent discharge through a litre of oxygen at 0° may form up to 14 milligrams of ozone, and at -30° up to 60 milligrams; but best of all in the determinations of Chappuis and Hautefeuille (1880), who found that at a temperature of -25° a silent discharge converted 20 p.c. of oxygen into ozone, whilst at 20° it was impossible to obtain more than 12 p.c., and at 100° less than 2 p.c. of ozone was obtained.
[2] A series of electric sparks may be obtained by an ordinary electrical machine, the electrophorus machines of Holtz and Teploff, &c., Leyden jars, Ruhmkorff coils, or similar means, when the opposite electricities are able to accumulate at the terminals of conductors, and a discharge of sufficient electrical intensity passes through the non-conductors air or oxygen.
[3] A silent discharge is such a combination of opposite statical (potential) electricities as takes place (generally between large surfaces) regularly, without sparks, slowly, and quietly (as in the dispersion of electricity). The discharge is only luminous in the dark; there is no observable rise of temperature, and therefore a larger amount of ozone is formed. But, nevertheless, on continuing the passage of a silent discharge through ozone it is destroyed. For the action to be observable a large surface is necessary, and consequently a source of electricity at a high potential. For this reason the silent discharge is best produced by a Ruhmkorff coil, as the most convenient means of obtaining a considerable potential of statical electricity with the employment of the comparatively feeble current of a galvanic battery.
[4] _v. Babo's apparatus_ was one of the first constructed for ozonising oxygen by means of a silent discharge (and it is still one of the best). It is composed of a number (twenty and more) of long, thin capillary glass tubes closed at one end. A platinum wire, extending along their whole length, is introduced into the other end of each tube, and this end is then fused up round the wire, the end of which protrudes outside the tube. The protruding ends of the wires are arranged alternately in two sides in such a manner that on one side there are ten closed ends and ten wires. A bunch of such tubes (forty should make a bunch of not more than 1 c.m. diameter) is placed in a glass tube, and the ends of the wires are connected with two conductors, and are fused to the ends of the surrounding tube. The discharge of a Ruhmkorff coil is passed through these ends of the wires, and the dry air or oxygen to be ozonised is passed through the tube. If oxygen be passed through, ozone is obtained in large quantities, and free from oxides of nitrogen, which are partially formed when air is acted on. At low temperatures ozone is formed in large quantities. As ozone acts on corks and india-rubber, the apparatus should be made entirely of glass. With a powerful Ruhmkorff coil and forty tubes the ozonation is so powerful that the gas when passed through a solution of iodide of potassium not only sets the iodine free, but even oxidises it to potassium iodate, so that in five minutes the gas-conducting tube is choked up with crystals of the insoluble iodate.