Shashanka Shekhar Mitra

Infrared Studies of Nitriles as Proton Acceptors in Hydrogen Bond Formation

The hydrogen‐bond formation between phenol, methyl alcohol, and pyrrole as proton donors and acetonitrile, propionitrile, butyronitrile, acrylonitrile, 3‐butenenitrile, and cyanogen bromide as proton acceptors has been studied by the infrared spectroscopic method. Spectra were recorded (CaF2 prism) for the OH and NH stretching modes in binary and ternary solutions. CCl4 was used as the solvent for the latter. In ternary solutions bands for both bonded and unbonded molecules were observed. Temperature dependent spectra were used to obtain the heat of formation of the hydrogen bonds. A correlation between the energy of formation and the corresponding frequency shift, Δν (=νfree—νassoc) could be made. In the binary system with a donor compound as solute and an acceptor compound as solvent, only one band corresponding to the bonded molecule was observed. The intensity of this band increased monotonically with the solute concentration, and no other band was observed even for a concentration of 4 moles/liter. T...