Diffusion coefficients of pseudoplanar aromatic compounds at infinite dilution in acetone have been measured at different temperatures by the Taylor dispersion technique. The data of the polar solutes that can form hydrogen bonds with acetone are compared with those of the nonpolar ones incapable of hydrogen bonding to quantify the effects of hydrogen-bonded association on diffusion. The effects are further found to correlate strongly with the overall hydrogen-bonded acidity of the polar solutes containing proton-donating groups. For the nonpolar solutes in this study, the diffusivities at different temperatures can be expressed very well by the recently developed molecular-modified fractional Stokes-Einstein relation with only two constants. An innovative model for solute diffusion in liquid solutions, which is constructed by combining the molecular-hydrodynamic relation for nonpolar solutes with the overall hydrogen-bonded acidity scale for polar solutes, is introduced for representing the diffusivities of different types of disc-shaped molecules at various temperatures. An equation developed from this model is demonstrated to be capable of calculating a total of 191 diffusion data of both the hydrogen-bonded and the nonassociated aromatic solutes in acetone from 268.2 to 328.2 K to a standard deviation of 2.7%.

Diffusivities of nonassociated aromatic compounds at infinite dilution in methanol and in cyclohexane were measured by the Taylor dispersion method. At constant temperatures, the diffusivity reciprocals of the pseudoplanar solutes in either solvent showed a linear dependence on the molecular volumes of the solutes. The activation energies of solute diffusion were determined, and the results for each solvent indicated that such energies are fairly insensitive to the size and mass of the disc-shaped solutes ranging from benzene to hexamethylbenzene. The effects of temperature, solute size, and solvent properties on diffusivity were further found to be accurately described by a new molecular-modified fractional Stokes–Einstein relation. Employing additional literature diffusivities for the same type of solutes, a general fractional molecular-hydrodynamic equation with only two constants has been established to predict 326 limiting mutual diffusivities that cover a broad range of solutes, solvents, and temperatures to an average absolute deviation of 2.61% only.

Limiting mutual diffusivities of o- and m-isomers of methylaniline, nitroaniline, nitrophenol, and aminophenol were measured in acetone at 298.2 K by the Taylor dispersion method. The data reveal that all of the o-substituted solutes capable of intramolecular hydrogen bonding diffuse faster than their m-counterparts without such bonding. By taking into account of the small corrections for the differences in molecular shape and steric hindrance between the o- and m-isomers that can form solute-solvent complexes, the net effects of intramolecular hydrogen bonding were uncovered to render the o-isomers greater in diffusivity by 3-15% as compared to their m-isomers in this study. For aromatic amines and phenols diffusing in acetone, the overall effects of intermolecular hydrogen bonding on diffusivity were ascertained by comparing the available diffusivity data of the associated aromatic solutes with those of the nonassociated ones. The intermolecular effects that cause solutes to diffuse slower were found to vary from approximately 12-39% in the present work. The results indicate that both of the opposite intra- and intermolecular effects are significant. In addition, the quantified effects were analyzed to show that they are closely related to the nature and position of the functional groups contained in the aromatic solutes, including those that are unable to form hydrogen bonds with acetone. A relation that can correlate the diffusivities of the hydrogen-bonded aromatic amines and phenols in acetone with the overall acidities of the compounds is also presented.