Elementary:(BTW) does anyone know of a chemical test for phosgene ?
From the Merck Index, see the end of the listing for preparation of the indicator paper.
Monograph number: 7491
Title: Phosgene.
CAS Registry number: [75-44-5]
CA name(s): Carbonic dichloride;
Additional name(s): carbonyl chloride; chloroformyl chloride.
Molecular formula: CCl2O
Molecular weight: 98.92
Composition: C 12.14%, Cl 71.68%, O 16.17%.
Line formula: Cl2C=O.
Literature references: Prepn from chlorine + carbon monoxide: Whitehouse, U.S. pat. 1,231,226 (1917); Peacock, U.S. pat. 1,360,312 (1921); Bradner, U.S. pat. 1,457,493 (1923); Douthitt, U.S. pat. 2,847,470 (1958 to Texas Co.); from carbon monoxide + nitrosyl chloride: Williams, U.S. pat. 1,746,506 (1930 to du Pont Ammonia Corp.); from carbon tetrachloride + oleum: Murphy, Reuter, Aust. Chem. Inst. J. Proc. 15, 144 (1948). Toxicology: S. A. Cucinell, Arch. Environ. Health 28, 272 (1974). Review: E. E. Hardy in Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology vol. 17 (Wiley-Interscience, New York, 3rd ed., 1982) pp 416-425.
Properties: Colorless, highly toxic gas; suffocating odor; when much diluted with air there is an odor reminiscent of moldy hay. Condenses at =0 deg to a clear, colorless, fuming liquid. d40 1.432. mp -118 deg. bp760 8.2 deg. Vapor press at 20 deg: 1215 mm. Slightly sol in water and slowly hydrolyzed by it; freely sol in benzene, toluene, glacial acetic acid and most liq hydrocarbons.
Melting point: -118
Boiling point: 8.2
Density: 1.432
Caution: Insidious poison as it is not irritating immediately, even when fatal concns are inhaled. May cause severe pulmonary edema (may be quickly fatal) or pneumonia. Inhalation of high concns causes choking, constricted feeling in chest, coughing, painful breathing, bloody sputum. Vapors strongly irritating to the eyes, cf. Patty's Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology vol. 2C, G. D. Clayton, F. E. Clayton, Eds. (Wiley-Interscience, New York, 3rd ed., 1982) pp 4126-4128. Note: Paper soaked in alcoholic or carbon tetrachloride soln contg 10% of a mixture of equal parts of p-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde and colorless diphenylamine, then dried, will turn from yellow to deep orange in the presence of approx the max allowable concn of phosgene, and should always be used where the generation of this gas is possible or suspected.
USE: For the prepn of many organic chemicals; as a war gas.