High-Pressure and Low-Temperature Structural Behaviour of 2,2,2-tricholoroethanol

In the mono-alcohols (ROH) there is a competition between the packing requirements of the relatively bulky R-group and the demand for the small hydroxyl groups to be sufficiently close for hydrogen bonding to occur. We have been carrying out a series of high-pressure studies on a range of mono-alcohol systems with our most recent study of 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol demonstrating that it has a surprisingly rich phase diagram. These studies were carried out with single-crystal X-ray diffraction at diamond and complementary low-temperature studies, at high-pressure using neutron powder-diffraction on PEARL. We now wish to extend this recent work to 2,2,2-trichloroethanol which, from our preliminary single-crystal high-pressure and low-temperature studies, also has a similarly rich phase diagram.