Thermal, FT-IR and dielectric studies of gel grown sodium oxalate single crystals

Abstract

Oxalic acid metabolism is important in humans, animals and plants. The effect of oxalic acid sodium salt is widely studied in living body. The growth of sodium oxalate single crystals by gel growth is reported, which can be used to mimic the growth of crystals in vivo. The grown single crystals are colourless, transparent and prismatic. The crystals have been characterized by thermogravimetric analysis, FT-IR spectroscopy and dielectric response at various frequencies of applied field. The crystals become anhydrous at 129·3°C. Coats and Redfern relation is applied to evaluate the kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of dehydration. The dielectric study suggests very less variation of dielectric constant with frequency of applied field in the range of 1 kHz-1 MHz. The nature of variation of imaginary part of complex permittivity, dielectric loss and a.c. resistivity with applied frequency has been reported.