STRUCTURES OF WATER AND PRIMARY ALCOHOL STUDIED BY MICROWAVE DIELECTRIC ANALYSES

By the use of the time domain reflectometry method dielectric measurements were carried out first on methanol mixtures with ethanol and 1-propanol, and second, water mixtures with methanol, ethanol and 1-propanol in the frequency range 10 MHz-20 GHz. The first mixtures show a Debye relaxation and logarithm of the relaxation time is given by a linear function of the mole fraction of methanol. These mixtures have the same chainlike cluster of pure alcohol. The second mixtures show the same trend of the relaxation time in a region 0 less-than-or-equal-to x(w) < 0.83, where x(w) is the mole fraction of water. In a region 0.83 < x(w) less-than-or-equal-to 1.0, we observed an entirely different behavior, which indicates that the cluster of pure water appears for x(w) > 0.83 and that the cluster must be cyclic, consisting of six molecules.