Hydrogen bonding in ethanol – a high pressure neutron diffraction study

We have determined the high pressure structure of perdeuterated ethanol by using neutron powder diffraction in the pressure region ∼2.5–4.0 GPa and compare it to that previously measured by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and the one suggested by ab initio structure calculations. In contrast to previous X-ray single-crystal studies, we see no evidence for a disordered proton around the hydroxyl group, but confirm the monoclinic symmetry in the measured pressure region. We also present the compression behaviour of the unit cell in this pressure range.