A Golden Episode Continues Fenton's Colorful Story

摘要

In 1900, Henry J. H. Fenton, then a Fellow of the Royal Society working in the Chemical Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, completed and published the first part (or episode) of an interesting and colorful story that started before 1876 with his curiosity during undergraduate stud-ies. Fenton's story was often told with organic colors as he described with passion: "When tartaric acid in aqueous solution interacts with certain oxidizing agents in presence of a trace of a ferrous salt, a solution is obtained which gives a beautiful violet color on the addition of caustic alkali". Of various oxidizing agents tested, Fenton found that "hydrogen dioxide", or hydrogen peroxide, (H2O2) as it is now known, was particularly effective.