Calorimetric study of proton tunneling in solid 5-bromo-9-hydroxyphenalenone and deuteration-induced phase transitions in its deuteroxy analog

The heat capacities of 5-bromo-9-hydroxyphenalenone (BHP) and its deuteroxy derivative (BDP) were measured at temperatures between 2 and 310 K. The heat capacity of BHP is a smooth function of temperature and that of BDP has two peaks at 21.3 and 33.9 K. By analyzing the data on BHP, a tunnel splitting of (64 +/- 2) cm(-1) associated with the quantum mechanical motion of the hydrogen atom in the intramolecular O-H-O hydrogen bond was derived along with the Debye temperature 60.8 K and two Einstein temperatures 131.4 (nondegenerate) and 210.4 K (doubly degenerate). The enthalpy change of 225 J mol(-1) and entropy change of 6.8 J K-1 mol(-1) were determined for the total thermal effects associated with the two phase transitions in BDP. The value of the transition entropy is consistent with the twofold disorder in the high temperature phase. The tunneling energy and transition enthalpy satisfy an inequality demanded, on the assumption that the potential energies experienced by the proton and deuteron are the same, by the occurrence in BDP and nonoccurrence in BHP of the phase transitions. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.