Friday, October 20, 2006
Ground Foyer ( Houston Westchase Marriott Hotel)
313

Systematic study of hydrogen bonding in model urea compounds using FT-IR

Josh L. Gray, Cara M. Barnes, Andrew J. Carr, and Karla S. McCain. Austin College, Sherman, TX

A systematic study of hydrogen bonding in model urea compounds was performed as a function of concentration using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Urea groups are used for hydrogen bonding in many molecular recognition and organogelation systems. Benzy hexyl urea and hexyl octyl urea of concentrations from 0.3 to 20.0 mg/ml were prepared in benzene and IR spectra were acquired in triplicate using a liquid cell with NaCl windows. Amide I and amide II showed three distinct peaks that were analyzed by fitting them to Gaussian curves using Microsoft Excel. The relative areas were plotted for each as a function of concentration and the trends were analyzed to better understand the hydrogen bonding properties of urea groups. The study concluded that there are three unique hydrogen bonding states in amide II that correspond to free, doubly, and singly bound urea. Furthermore, increases in concentration of the model compounds cause a decrease in free urea and an increase in singly and doubly bound urea, indicating considerable aggregation. Finally, the differences in the relative trends of benzyl hexyl urea and hexyl octyl urea are due to their different solvation in benzene.