Associating behaviour of pure polar liquids: dielectric properties of heptadecanoic and nonadecanoic acids

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Abstract
The associating behaviour of heptadecanoic (margaric) and nonadecanoic acids has been studied by the determination of their dielectric properties. The correlation factor between molecular pairs was determined with reference to the Kirkwood-Fröhlich theory. An expression for the degree of association was obtained through simple statistical considerations based on the definition of the effective number of molecules carrying a dipole moment, derived from the Kirkwood-Fröhlich equation. The so evaluated degree of association results very high (percentage of dimer molecules of 93 per cent for heptadecanoic and of 94 per cent for nonadecanoic acid, above the respective melting points) decreasing with increasing temperature. A comparison of dimerization data on heptadecanoic and nonadecanoic acids with those of other lower molecular weight fatty acids, at a given temperature, shows a linear increase of dimerization with molecular weight.

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