Semi-clathrate hydrates are attractive heat storage materials because the equilibrium temperatures, located above 0 °C in most cases, can be changed by selecting guest cations and anions. The equilibrium temperatures are influenced by the size and hydrophilicity of guest ions, hydration number, crystal structure, and so on. This indicates that intermolecular and/or interionic interaction in the semi-clathrate hydrates may be related to the variation of the equilibrium temperatures. Therefore, intermolecular and/or interionic interaction in semi-clathrate hydrates with quaternary onium salts was directly observed using low-frequency Raman spectroscopy, a type of terahertz spectroscopy. The results show that Raman peak positions were mostly correlated with the equilibrium temperatures: in the semi-clathrate hydrates with higher equilibrium temperatures, Raman peaks around 65 cm-1 appeared at a higher wavenumber and the other Raman peaks at around 200 cm-1 appeared at a lower wavenumber. Low-frequency Raman observation is a valuable tool with which to study the equilibrium temperatures in semi-clathrate hydrates.
Keywords: equilibrium temperature; interionic interaction; intermolecular interaction; low-frequency Raman; semi-clathrate hydrate.