An experimental investigation of Lewis acid-base interactions of liquid carbon dioxide using Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy

Presented here is an investigation into the solvent properties of liquid carbon dioxide by means of FT-IR spectroscopy. A high-pressure, circulation-type apparatus was designed and built specifically for this study. The spectra for the combination bands for carbon dioxide show that there are interactions between methanol and carbon dioxide. However, the spectra of the fundamental O-D vibration of deuterated methanol in liquid carbon dioxide indicate that there is no hydrogen bonding. Therefore. we conclude that the interactions between carbon dioxide and methanol are Lewis acid-base interactions rather than hydrogen bonding. This conclusion is supported by experiments where acetone is introduced into the CO2/methanol-d binary system. FT-IR measurements show that acetone hydrogen bonds with deuterated methanol.