Temperature-induced evolution of a cluster structure in n-nonan-1-ol: Experimental study and quantum-chemistry calculations

Abstract

It is well known that alcohols belong to the class of partly ordered liquids, which can form aggregates or clusters with different numbers of molecules. The object of our investigation is n-nonan-1-ol. The experimentally obtained temperature-induced evolution of n-nonan-1-ol in the temperature range from –20 to 0 ∘C is analyzed. Experimental results are compared with the results of the quantum-chemistry computer simulation. It is shown that, at the liquid-solid phase transition, one can observe a change of the cluster structure from smaller to bigger associates.