Studying the Effect of Temperature on the Formation of Hydrogen Bond Dimers: A FTIR and Computational Chemistry Lab for Undergraduate Students

Abstract

This laboratory experiment allows one to study the effect of temperature in the process of formation of hydrogen bound cyclic dimers of benzoic acid (BA). The implementation of the proposed methodology, which comprises the use of FTIR spectroscopy and quantum chemistry calculations, enables the obtaining of the thermodynamic parameters of the dimerization reaction and their subsequent validation by computational chemistry calculations. Hence, the students are involved in a practical learning scheme focused in the study of a central topic in chemistry, such as hydrogen bonding, with the final purpose being to train chemistry students in applying theoretical-experimental approaches to extract meaningful data and valuable information for explaining experimental observables.