Investigations of Intermolecular Interactions in Liquid Hydrocarbons

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Investigations of Intermolecular Interactions in
Liquid Hydrocarbons C. Dale Keefe, Department of
Chemistry, Cape Breton University, Sydney, Canada
Interactions between molecules play a key role in
the structure and properties of liquids. In this
project, the interactions in small molecule
liquid hydrocarbons are investigated. These
interactions are studied by the determining how
the liquids absorb infrared light and how they
scatter laser light. Over the last year, the
infrared absorption spectra of cyclohexane (Fig.
Left), n-pentane (Fig. Center) and cyclopentane
(Fig. Right) have been determined. The next stage
of this work is to analyze the data and build on
our knowledge of how these interactions control
the optical and physical properties in these
small hydrocarbons which will ultimately be
extended to large organic compounds. In
addition, new experimental measurements will be
carried out on other pure liquid hydrocarbons as
well as various binary mixtures.