Urea's match in the hydrogen-bond network? A high pressure THz study

Abstract We present results of the measurement of the low frequency spectrum of solvated urea. The study revealed a blue shift of the intramolecular mode of urea centered at 150 cm−1 of Δν= 17 cm−1 upon increasing the pressure up to 10 kbar. The blue shift scaled linearly with the increase in density and was attributed to a stiffening of the water-urea intermolecular potential. We deduced an increase in the number of affected water molecules from 1 to 2 up to 5–7, which corresponds to the sterical coordination number of urea. The increase in hydration number can be explained by an suppression of the NH2 inversion and the hydrogen bond switching around the NH2 group. Pressure induced sterical constraints are proposed to hinder the rapid switching of hydrogen bond partners and make the water around urea less bulk-like than under ambient conditions.