Infrared spectra of water. I. Effect of temperature and of H/D isotopic dilution

The implementation of a cell operating with the technique of Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR) enabled us to obtain good quality IR spectra of water for the whole region above 750 cm−1 (which is the limit of the effect of the cutoff wave number of the crystal) and up to 5000 cm−1. ATR spectra have been recorded as a function of temperature ranging from −5 °C to 80 °C and of H/D molar concentration c(0c1). They have been transformed into spectra in ε″, using the Bertie–Eysel iteration procedure. In this paper evolutions of these spectra in ε″ upon variations of these two parameters c and T are investigated and analyzed. It is shown that any experimental spectrum in ε″ of a mixture of normal and heavy water is a superposition of three spectra due to pure H2O, pure D2O, and a spectrum that is only slightly dependent upon isotopic concentration c and is consequently mainly due to HDO. Analysis of this slight dependence upon c allows precise conclusions concerning vibrational interactions for both bending bands δ and stretching bands νs to be reached. Evolution of spectra with temperature unambiguously shows that all spectra at temperature T may be decomposed into a low temperature spectrum and a high temperature spectrum. The coefficient defining this decomposition Eqs. (11) and (14) displays a quadratic variation with T. It is the same for H2O, D2O, and HDO within the precision of the experiment. A low temperature spectrum corresponding to a (slightly distorted) H-bond network with no other defects, as well as a high temperature spectrum due to ‘‘defects’’ cannot, however, be determined without any further assumption. Limits for values of the concentration of defects α(T) may nevertheless be established.