Trichloroethylene
chemical compound
Trichloroethylene (TCE, IUPAC name: trichloroethene) is an organochloride with the formula C2HCl3, commonly used as an industrial degreaser. It is a clear, colourless, non-flammable, volatile liquid with a sweet chloroform-like pleasant mild smell and burning sweet taste. Trichloroethylene has been sold under a variety of trade names for various purposes. Under the trade names Trimar and Trilene, it was used as a volatile anesthetic and as an inhaled obstetrical analgesic in millions of patients. Industrial abbreviations include trichlor, Trike, Tricky and tri.
Trichloroethylene is heavier than water and insoluble in water, therefore it sinks under water when spilt which causes it to migrate downward through soil and aquifers. It settles at the bottom of aquifers and forms persistent subsurface contamination that is difficult to detect and remediate.
History
The earliest trichloroethylene synthesis was reported by Auguste Laurent in 1836. Laurent obtained it from the action of potassium hydroxide on a mixture of 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane and 1,1,1,2-tetrachloroethane made from the chlorination of ethylene dichloride and notated it as C4HCl3 (at the time, the atomic weight of carbon was thought to be half of what it really is). He named trichloroethylene chlorétherise but did not investigate the compound further as his sample seemed unstable.
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This entry incorporates text from “Trichloroethylene” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.