Since acetylene is more soluble in water than any of its
diluents or impurities, sulphuretted hydrogen and ammonia excepted, and
since the solubility of all gases increases as the pressure at which they
are stored rises, the true acetylene in an acetylene holder dissolves in
the water more rapidly and comparatively more copiously than the
impurities; and thus the acetylene tends to disappear and the impurities
to become concentrated within the bell. Simultaneously at the outer part
of the seal, air is dissolved in the water; and by processes of diffusion
the air so dissolved passes through the liquid from the outside to the
inside, where it escapes into the bell, while the dissolved acetylene
similarly passes from the inside to the outside of the seal, and there
mingles with the atmosphere. Thus, the longer a certain volume of
acetylene is stored over water, the more does it become contaminated with
the constituents of the atmosphere and with the impurities originally
present in it; while as the acetylene is much more soluble than its
impurities, more gas escapes from, than enters, the holder by diffusion,
and so the bulk of stored gas gradually diminishes.
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