Studies of the Intermediate Products Formed during the Hydrolysis of Urea by Urease”

In 1923, Fearonl stated that he had been able to detect traces of cyanic acid in solutions in which urea was being decomposed by soy bean urease. He proposed that the reaction concerned is not a true hydrolysis, but rather a cleavage of the urea molecule into cyanic acid and ammonia and that the cyanic acid is at once spontaneously hydrolyzed to ammonia and carbon dioxide.2 Sumner,3 in 1926, objected to Fearon’s theory not only because he could not detect cyanic acid after allowing exceptionally pure preparations of urease to react with urea, but also because he contended that cyanic acid, if formed, would not be hydrolyzed in an alkaline or neutral medium, but would accumulate so that the end-product of urease action would be ammonium cyanate and not ammonium carbonate. Sumner is not the only author whose opinion and results are contrary to those of Fearon. Armstrong and Horton4 in 1912, failed to detect cyanic acid among the decomposition products of urea acted on by urease and Iwanoff,s in 1924, could find no cyanic acid when urease was allowed to act upon urea dissolved in 80 per cent alcohol. Kay6 has ob-