Understanding the Pressure Response in Amines: Weak hydrogen-bonding vs Non-bonded Interactions

Methylamines are an ideal chemical system to study in order to understand the effects of steric bulk and competing non-bonding interactions on hydrogen bonding at the networks these bonds form. Despite their attraction as relatively simple systems that would further our understanding of these fundamental chemical issues, there have been relatively few studies looking at methylamine in itself, both at ambient conditions or at higher pressures. The only studies available in the scientific literature used X-Ray Diffraction, which unfortunately can not locate hydrogen atoms (which are abundent in these systems), and hence we do not yet have a complete atomic picture of their structures or bonding. The current proposal aims to address this situation by studying 3 carefully chosen methylamines to gain complete structural and chemical information on methylamines and the impact of H-bonds.