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Reply to 'Entropic factors also contribute to the high melting points of polyhedral alkanes'

Nature Chemistry volume 7, pages 89–90 (2015)Cite this article

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Shaik and Alvarez et al. reply

Andrew Bond proposes1 that to explain the high melting points of polyhedral alkanes compared with linear or cyclic alkanes of the same size, besides the intermolecular interaction energies2, the symmetry-determined rotational entropy change should be taken into account, as the melting point Tm results from a balance of the enthalpic and entropic changes, Tm = ΔHm/ΔSm. He adds that molecules with higher symmetry number (σ) have a smaller number of distinguishable orientations, hence their rotational entropy in the liquid phase is smaller, resulting in a smaller ΔSm contribution and higher melting temperatures.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Chemistry and The Lise Meitner-Minerva Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel

    Sason Shaik

  2. Departament de Química Inorgànica and Institut de Química Teòrica i Computacional, Universitat de Barcelona, Martí i Franquès 1-11, Barcelona, 08028, Spain

    Santiago Alvarez

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  1. Sason Shaik
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  2. Santiago Alvarez
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Correspondence to Sason Shaik or Santiago Alvarez.

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Shaik, S., Alvarez, S. Reply to 'Entropic factors also contribute to the high melting points of polyhedral alkanes'. Nature Chem 7, 89–90 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2147

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