A theoretical approach to the dielectric relaxation of liquid alcohols

The dielectric relaxation mechanism of liquid alcohols was studied by assuming the association equilibrium between hydrogen‐bonded chain multimers. The dipole inversion arising from the cooperative rotation of the OH groups of the multimers was considered to be the main mechanism of the dipole relaxation. The stochastic model of one‐dimensional random walk was introduced to explain the dipole inversion process and it was found that the dipole relaxation time of an n‐mer is proportional to n+1. Based on this result and the stoichiometry of the association equilibrium, we calculated the dielectric constants and losses of liquid alcohols as a function of ω, which are in fair agreement with the experimental results.