Infrared Intensities of Liquids. 6. A Study of the Effect of Water Purity and Dissolved Gases on the Intensity of the OH Stretching Band of H₂O(I)

To investigate reported nonreproducibility of the absolute intensity of the OH stretching fundamental of water, we have studied the effect of sample purity on the absolute infrared absorption intensities of water. We have studied 20 water-gas combinations, which used water from five different purification procedures (sources), each saturated at atmospheric pressure (0.92 atm) and 21°C with N2(g), O2(g), Ar(g), and CO2(g). No effect of water impurity or gas content was detected beyond ±1.5% of the intensities, and these small variations may well be due to random error. The average of the (average) absolute intensity spectra of the 20 water-gas combinations agreed with that recently reported by us for pure water to within ±2% and within ±1% for the OH stretching band. "Absolute intensity" spectra here mean "imaginary refractive index" spectra. © 1989 American Chemical Society.