The Role of Magnetism in Valence

Abstract

A brief statement concerning the electrochemical and magnetochemical theories is made, together with a description of some of the phenomena for which the electrochemical theory does not give a satisfactory explanation. It is pointed out that one of the tests in favor of the magnetochemical theory would be the changing of a paramagnetic substance to a diamagnetic substance when the valence is modified so as to change the molecule from one of odd molecular number to one of even molecular number. To test this point measurements were made of the magnetic susceptibilities of a number of carefully prepared compounds of variable valence such as CuO and ${\mathrm{Cu}}_{2}$O. The results show that the compounds of Cu, Bi, Pb and Sn of odd molecular number are paramagnetic while those of even molecular number are diamagnetic. On the other hand MnO (odd) and ${\mathrm{Mn}}_{2}$${\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ (even) are both paramagnetic, the former slightly more so. CoO (odd) is strongly ferro-magnetic while ${\mathrm{Co}}_{2}$${\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ (even) is paramagnetic. AgO and A${\mathrm{g}}_{2}$O are both diamagnetic suggesting that possibly AgO is of the form ${\mathrm{Ag}}_{2}$${\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ (even).