It follows on this theory that all coloured substances contain either of the groupings or the former being a para-quinonoid, the latter an ortho-quinonoid.
The quinonoid structure of many coloured compounds has been proved experimentally, as, for example, by Hewitt for the benzene-azo-phenols, and Hantzsch for triaminotriphenyl methane and acridine derivatives; but, at the same time, many substances cannot be so explained.
Solution in dilute alkali was supposed to be accompanied by the rupture of the lactone ring with the formation of the quinonoid salt shown in 2.
He has also shown that the nitrophenols yield, in addition to the colourless true nitrophenol ethers, an isomeric series of coloured unstable quinonoid aci-ethers, which have practically the same colour and yield the same absorption spectra as the coloured metallic salts.
Meyer) regards all coloured substances as having a quinonoid structure.
This oscillation may be represented in the case of acridine and fluorescein as This theory brings the property of fluorescence into relation with that of colour; the forms which cause fluorescence being the coloured modifications: ortho-quinonoid in the case of acridine, paraquinonoid in the case of fluorescein.
The constitution of the oxyazo compounds has attracted much attention, some chemists holding that they are true azophenols of the type R N 2 R l OH, while others look upon them as having a quinonoid structure, i.e.
Hewitt has also attacked the problem by brominating the oxyazobenzenes, and has shown that when the hydrobromic acid produced in the reaction is allowed to remain in the system, a brombenzene-azo-phenol is formed, whilst if it be removed (by the addition of sodium acetate) bromination takes place in the phenolic nucleus; consequently the presence of the mineral acid gives the azo compound a pseudo-quinonoid character, which it does not possess if the mineral acid be removed from the sphere of the reaction.
Soc., 1907, 91, p. 1049) suggested a quinonoid formula for diazonium salts, which has been combated by Hantzsch (Ber., 1908, 41, pp. 353 2 et seq.).
It appears probable that the solutions contain a quinonoid modification (ssee Gomberg and Cone, Ann., 1909, 37 0, p. 142).
