A springboard to (RAL) space to study unusual liquified gases

Camilla’s research focusses on gaining a fundamental understanding of competitive intermolecular interactions and solvation patterns in liquids. Her and Adam regularly use neutron experiments at ISIS as part of their work.

However, for their latest study into the liquid structure of condensed gases, they needed another perspective.

“We’re using SANDALS to look at the liquid structure of the compounds under pressure, and MAPS to look at the frozen glassy states,” explains Adam. “However, we wanted to study the vibrational structure of the liquids, and infrared spectroscopy would be ideal for this.”

However, they needed to find a spectrometer where they could condense the gases at low temperatures to form the liquid.

Camilla contacted the spectroscopy group from RAL Space to see if they could run the experiment at their high-resolution spectroscopy facility. Damien Weidmann and Richard Brownsword from the RAL Space spectroscopy team had to design and test the setup to get the required capability to flow the gas in and lower the temperature to measure them in their liquid forms. These samples come with added complexity as some are toxic gases and so they need to use a fume hood.

“We have to make these compounds ourselves, as they’re not readily available commercially,” says Adam. “Some can also be very smelly – once I’ve spent a day in the lab synthesising them, I have to avoid going home on the tube!”

Once they have measured their samples, the breadth of the peaks in the IR will give them information about the bonding in the liquid structure.

“These measurements are an amazing addition to our SANDALS data,” Camilla Di Mino, ISIS Springboard Award winner. “I doubt, given the nature of the compounds, that we would have been able to do the experiments somewhere else.”