The structure of polar aprotic solvents in cylindrical nanopores

The aim of this experiment is to understand the structure of two widely used polar organic solvents, N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) and N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), in cylindrical geometry nanopores. Neutron scattering has already given us deep insight into the interactions between the solvent molecules in bulk liquids, but in many situations we need to understand how they behave at interfaces. Key questions centre around the orientational preferences, including which direction the dipole moments point (for example, axial or normal to the surface). To answer such questions we will place isotopically labelled NMP and DMF in templated porous carbons, with cylindrical pores of diameters 3 nm and 5.5 nm. The NIMROD instrument is ideally suited to this study, as it allows us to probe the length-scales that cover the correlations within and between the pores.