INS investigation of disaccharide/H2O mixtures

Inelastic neutron scattering (INS) on pure water and on aqueous solutions of homologous disaccharides, such as trehalose and sucrose, are presented. Neutron spectra were collected over a temperature range of 253 to 353 K by using the spectrometer MARI at the ISIS pulsed neutron source of the Rutheford Appleton Laboratory (Chilton, UK). The MARI spectrometer allowed us to get information on the hydrogen bond strength for the two homologous disaccharide/H2O mixtures by analysing their low frequency vibrational properties. q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved