Study of fluid structure and dielectric behaviour of alcohols in non-polar solvents

Abstract

The determination of the structure and properties of associated liquids could provide deeper insight into the phenomena of the molecular interactions and is of great importance in biology and chemical physics. The IR and NMR spectroscopic methods were extensively used for determining the nature of association. However, these methods could give only circumlocutory information regarding the alignment of neighbouring molecules. This vital information could be obtained from dielectric measurements by virtue of the influence of local order and the overall dipole moment. In dilute solutions of alcohols with inert solvents, the interaction between the solute species among themselves may be given by a modified form of the correlation factor (g′) taking the solute-solvent and solvent-solvent interaction. Dielectric constant of the binary mixtures of 1-hexadecanol, 1-tetradecanol, 2-ethyl-1-hexanol and 2-ethoxyethanol in benzene were determined at 298K, 308K and 318K. The presence of α and β multimers in the above systems were identified and the results are interpreted accordingly.