Physical Properties of Nitroalkanes

The lower nitroalkanes are colourless, pleasant-smelling liquids that are only sparingly soluble in water but dissolve readily in organic solvents such as benzene and acetone. They have unusually high boiling points for their size because of their highly polar C-NO2 bond and strong dipole-dipole attraction between molecules. Alkyl nitrites (R-O-N=O), the functionally isomeric family, have distinctly LOWER boiling points than the corresponding nitroalkanes of the same molecular formula, since the nitrite's n …