Growth Processes and Associative Properties in Alcohols by Dielectric and FTIR Spectroscopy

Abstract

Abstract Dielectric permittivity and FTIR data of two isomeric alcohols, normal Pentanol (n-PeOH) and 2-Methyl-2-Butanol (2M-2BuOH) dissolved in an inert and apolar solvent, carbon tetrachloride, are presented. The extracted values of the Kirkwood correlation factor gk , from the two techniques, allow to explain the growth mechanism in these associated liquids starting from the monomeric state up to oligomers for increasing values of concentration. In particular, the Kirkwood factor plotted versus concentration exhibits, in the case of n-PeOH, a minimum lower than unity followed by a rise up to values larger than unity in the neat alcohol indicating that H-bond favours cyclic multimers at low concentrations and open multimers at high concentrations. In the case of 2M-2BuOH, instead, the gk behaviour suggests the persistence of both of cyclic and open dimers in all the concentration region.