Pressure-induced Phase Transition in Oleic Acid Studied by Raman Spectroscopy

High-pressure Raman studies up to 0.84 GPa are performed on oleic acid. Spectral analysis indicates that oleic acid undergoes a pressure-induced phase transition in the 0.29-0.36 GPa range. Only one high-pressure phase below 0.84 GPa is present, in which the polymethylene chains take the ordered all-trans conformation, with the methyl end of the chains exhibiting the ordered tt chain-end conformation and the olefin group taking the skew-cis-skew' conformation. The conformational characters of the oleic acid molecule show that the high-pressure phase is the same as the low-temperature crystalline gamma phase. The pressure-induced phase transition is typical of first-order transitions and the transition path during compression is different from that during cooling.