The behaviour of polar molecules in solid paraffin wax

Abstract

A paper by R. W. Sillars of the National Physical Laboratory was published under the above title in 1938. Sillars showed how the relaxation time of long-chain esters embedded in a paraffin wax medium depended upon the chain length of the ester. It is well known that many properties of long-chain compounds alternate according as the number of carbon atoms is odd or even. Accordingly, Sillars was careful to use only esters with an even number of carbon atoms in order to reduce the number of possible variables affecting his investigations. He hoped the esters with an odd number would be examined later, and accordingly the work described in this paper was undertaken for the purpose of filling in an obvious gap in Sillars’s experiments and to be complementary to them.