Electric Conduction in Liquid Hydrocarbons. I. Benzene

Abstract

A technique has been developed which allows the determination of specific conductance in the bulk of a liquid, independent of electrode materials or electrode separation. By this method, the specific conductance of benzene saturated with air has been determined to be 1.1±0.1×10^—14 Ω^—1 cm^—1 for fields between 50 and 400 V/cm. Measurements of the potential gradients between electrodes show them to be strongly asymmetric. The temperature dependence of the dark current conduction of benzene has been shown to follow the typical relation normally associated with semiconductance. The value of E has been determined to be 0.42±0.4 eV for both liquid and solid benzene. The photoconductance of benzene was found to follow closely its spectroscopic behavior. The experimental results have been interpreted to suggest that conduction in both liquid and solid benzene is based on an electron transfer mechanism. The temperature dependence of this mechanism has been shown to be independent of impurities and to be a property only of the bulk of the liquid.