Pressure-Induced Aggregation of Associating Liquids as a Driving Force Enhancing Hydrogen Bond Cooperativity

The behavior of hydrogen bonds under extreme pressure is still not well understood. Until now, the shift of the stretching vibration band of the X-H group (X = the donor atom) in infrared spectra has been attributed to the variation in the length of the covalent X-H bond. Herein, we combined infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction experimental studies of two H-bonded liquid hexane derivatives, i.e., 2-ethyl-1-hexanol and 2-ethyl-1-hexylamine, in diamond anvil cells at pressures up to the GPa level, with molecular dynamics simulations covering similar thermodynamic conditions. Our findings revealed that the observed changes in the X-H stretching vibration bands under compression are not primarily due to H-bond shortening resulting from increased density but mainly due to cooperative enhancement of H-bonds caused by intensified molecular clustering. This sheds new light on the nature of H-bond interactions and the structure of liquid molecular systems under compression.