Acetonitrile

Acetonitrile is the chemical compound with the formula CH
3CN. This colourless liquid is the simplest organic nitrile (hydrogen cyanide is a simpler nitrile, but the cyanide anion is not classed as organic). It is produced mainly as a byproduct of acrylonitrile manufacture. It is used as a polar aprotic solvent in organic synthesis and in the purification of butadiene.

In the laboratory, it is used as a medium-polarity solvent that is miscible with water and a range of organic solvents, but not saturated hydrocarbons. It has a convenient liquid range and a high dielectric constant of 38.8. With a dipole moment of 3.92 D, acetonitrile dissolves a wide range of ionic and nonpolar compounds and is useful as a mobile phase in HPLC and LC-MS. The N-C-C skeleton is linear with a short C-N distance of 1.16 Å.

Acetonitrile was first prepared in 1847 by the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas.

Applications

Acetonitrile is used mainly as a solvent in the purification of butadiene in refineries.

Acetonitrile (data page)

This page provides supplementary chemical data on acetonitrile.

Material Safety Data Sheet

The handling of this chemical may incur notable safety precautions. It is highly recommend that you seek the Material Safety Datasheet (MSDS) for this chemical from a reliable source and follow its directions.

Structure and properties

Thermodynamic properties

Vapor pressure of liquid

Table data obtained from CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 44th ed. The "(s)" notation indicates temperature of solid/vapor equilibrium. Otherwise the data is temperature of liquid/vapor equilibrium.

Distillation data

Spectral data

References