trichloroethene

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. Under the trade names Trimar and Trilene, it was used as a volatile anesthetic and as an inhaled obstetrical analgesic. Industrial abbreviations include trichlor, Trike, Tricky and tri. It should not be confused with the similar 1,1,1-trichloroethane, which was commonly known as chlorothene.

==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 (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.