Associating Behavior of Saturated Liquid Fatty Acids

In this paper the temperature dependence of the static and the high-frequency permittivities of some saturated fatty acids of the series CnH2nO2 in the liquid phase are reported. From such data, information on the associating behavior and on the structure of the liquids are deduced in the light of the Kirkwood-Fröhlich theory for polar fluids. A discussion is then given on the dependence of association upon the number of carbon atoms in the molecule of each acid.