Marvin Carmack

The Dipole Moments and Structures of a Series of Alkyl Polysulfides

The dipole moments of n‐hexadecyl mono‐, di‐, tri‐, and tetrasulfides at 30°C are 1.47, 2.00, 1.63, and 2.16D, respectively. These values provide evidence in favor of non‐branched sulfur chains in the polysulfides and are also in accord with fixed non‐planar configurations for these chains. It is possible that the disulfide exists as mixture of two non‐superimposable mirror‐image forms, the trisulfide as a mixture of one highly polar form together with a pair of nearly non‐polar enantiomorphs, and the tetrasulfide as a mixture of three different pairs of enantiomorphs, all three pairs being polar.