A review of the texts on colloidal chemistry shows the following conceptions of this term. Cassuto[1] calls a gel the gelatinous precipitate obtained from a sol by means of an electrolyte, heat or evaporation. I. e., a gel is formed by coagulation of a sol. He calls stiffened sols (or jellies), "gelatines."
Bechhold[2] remarks the loose use of the word "gel" and states that he restricts it to the description of the coagula from sols. To the stiffened sols or jellies he applies the term "Gallerte," which in English might be called "jelly."
Freundlich[3] says that systems of solid dispersion media and liquid dispersed phase are gels as distinguished from the reverse which are suspensions or emulsions. In other words he applies the word "gel" to jellies.
Hatschek[4] refers to the fact that Graham applied the name "gels" to the products obtained by the coagulation of sols, but later on in his book he calls jellies, gels also.
Ostwald in his "Handbook of Colloid Chemistry," considers all colloids as gels when the system becomes "microscopically heterogeneous." That is to say, he applies the term promiscuously.
Taylor[5] uses "gel" in the same loose general manner as Ostwald, Hatschek and Freimdlich.
Zsigmondy in his " Kolloidchemie," limits the word "gel " to the dry residue which will not redisperse in a solvent, but he applies "hydrogel" to the jelly-like mass formed by removal of the dispersion medium or by salt coagulation.
Hardy[6] recognized the difference in properties of substances called "gels" and he qualified the term—"gels by coagulation" and "gels by stiffening."
I feel confident that Graham did not apply this term as loosely as is popular at the present time. In his remarks on the properties of colloidal tungstic acid[7] he says: "It is remarkable that the purified acid is not pectized by acids or salts even at the boiling temperature. Evaporated to dryness, it forms vitreous scales, like gum or gelatine." Note that he describes the dry residue as "scales, like gum or gelatine" and not as gel.
It is evident, then, that the original meaning of the term gel has not been adhered to and in fact is more often applied to the state best described as jellies. Shall we adhere to Graham's definition or shall we discard it, restricting the term gel and its modifications to jellies, as popularity favors, and do away with any special terms to describe coagula from sols by electrolytes, or residues formed by evaporation to dryness? Special terms to describe these last two cases are obviously unnecessary and serve only to encumber colloid chemistry.
Lately the word "peptization" or "peptinization," as originated by Graham, has shown tendencies of wider use than formerly. Graham used this expression to describe the formation of a sol from a gel by the influence of a small amount of foreign reagent as, for example, the formation of a hydrous ferric oxide sol from a coagulum of ferric hydroxide by treatment with a small amount of hydrochloric acid or ferric chloride. He named it "peptization" because it resembled the hydrolysis of egg white to peptone by acid.
Cassuto, Hatschek, von Weimam and Zsigmondy preserve the original sense of this term. Bancroft[8] has recently proposed, however, that we use peptization to describe all cases of transformation of gel (using this term in the present popular sense) to sol and not restrict it merely to cases where a foreign electrolyte has been added to accomplish the change. E. g., when dry gelatine is "dissolved" in water Bancroft would call it a case of gelatine being peptized by water. This usage has its merits because it eliminates the word "dissolve" and the implication of "solution."
