ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Local structure and orientational dipole correlations of liquid nitromethane

Abstract: Building on our recent SANDALS study on liquid chloroform we now wish to focus on nitromethane which is, like chloroform, a very powerful solvent. Its molecular dipole moment is almost four times larger than that of chloroform and dielectric spectroscopy suggests that the relative dipole alignments are fundamentally different in the two liquids. How two such very different liquids can display similar performances as solvents is an open question which we will address. To achieve this, we will obtain the orientational correlation functions (OCFs) which reflect the probabilities of the relative orientations of the dipole moments within nitromethane. High confidence in the OCF data will be achieved by using hydrogen and nitrogen isotopic substitution as well as X-ray diffraction data. The ultimate aim is to link local structure properties with the performance of nitromethane as a solvent.

Principal Investigator: Professor Christoph Salzmann
Experimenter: Mr Jacob Shephard
Local Contact: Dr Silvia Imberti

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1520243

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1520243

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Professor Christoph Salzmann et al; (2015): Local structure and orientational dipole correlations of liquid nitromethane, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1520243

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.