Neutron diffraction from mixtures of deuterated and hydrogenous n-alkanes (Disordered Materials Express)

Aliphatic liquids are interesting molecules to study by neutron diffraction and scattering, motivated both by applied and fundamental science. They are used as solvents for many functional materials and are simple model molecules for studying the structure of liquids. Linear n-alkanes, saturated unbranched chains of C–C bonds, are the simplest homologous series of aliphatic liquids. SANS data of mixtures of a hydrogenous and deuterated n-alkanes show coherent scattering dominating at low Q and incoherent scattering dominating at high Q. SANS is not optimised for measuring diffraction at high Q, which prevents a determination of the intensity of all contributions with certainty. NIMROD is the ideal instrument to overcome this limitation, enabling the scattering of mixtures of a hydrogenous and deuterated n-alkanes to be measured on a single instrument and over a broad Q range.