Characterization of 1-alkanol + strongly polar compound mixtures from thermophysical data and the application of the Kirkwood-Buff integrals and Kirkwood-Fr\"ohlich formalisms

TL;DR

This study investigates mixtures of 1-alkanol with various polar compounds using thermophysical data and Kirkwood-Buff formalism, revealing structural effects, interaction strengths, and preferences in molecular arrangements.

Contribution

It applies thermophysical measurements and Kirkwood-Buff integrals to characterize molecular interactions and structures in 1-alkanol mixtures with strongly polar compounds, providing new insights into their behavior.

Findings

Nitriles are more preferred than nitroalkanes around alcohol molecules.

Mixtures show positive excess molar functions indicating dipolar interactions.

Structural effects become more pronounced with increasing 1-alkanol chain length.

Abstract

Mixtures formed by 1-alkanol and one strongly polar compound (nitromethane (NM), ethanenitrile (EtN), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), sulfolane (SULF), nitrobenzene (NTBz) or benzonitrile (BzCN)) have been investigated on the basis of a set of thermophysical data, which includes: excess molar functions (enthalpies, $H_{\text{m}}^{\text{E}}$, Gibbs energies, $G_{\text{m}}^{\text{E}}$, entropies, $T S_{\text{m}}^{\text{E}}$, isobaric heat capacities, $C_{p \text{m}}^{\text{E}}$, volumes, $V_{\text{m}}^{\text{E}}$); liquid-liquid equilibria (LLE), excess permittivities and deviations from the linearity of dynamic viscosities. In addition, calculations have been conducted to determine the Kirkwood-Buff integrals and the Kirkwood correlations factors, $g_{\text{K}}$, of the investigated mixtures. In the former case, DISQUAC has been employed for modeling the needed vapour-liquid equilibria data. Many systems under consideration are characterized by dipolar interactions between like molecules and have positive values of $H_{\text{m}}^{\text{E}}$, $C_{p \text{m}}^{\text{E}}$ and $T S_{\text{m}}^{\text{E}}$. On the other hand, alkanol-solvent interactions, for mixtures with a fixed 1-alkanol, become weakened in the sequence: DMSO $\approx$ SULF > EtN > NM > BzCN > NTBz. In systems with a given solvent, such interactions become also weaker when the chain length of the 1-alkanol is increased. Interestingly, the considered mixtures also show strong structural effects. Results on Kirkwood-Buff integrals reveal that nitriles are more preferred than nitroalkanes around a central alcohol molecule. Calculations on $g_{\text{K}}$ show that, in terms of the mixture polarization, the systems are rather unstructured, and that this trend becomes more important when the 1-alkanol size increases in solutions with a given solvent.