Fatty acids polymorphism and solid-state miscibility: Pentadecanoic acid–hexadecanoic acid binary system

The pentadecanoic acid–hexadecanoic acid (C15H29OOH–C16H31OOH) binary system is dealt with in this article. The polymorphism of 20 mixed materials has been investigated combining calorimetric measurements, isothermal and versus temperature X-ray powder diffraction and also FTIR spectroscopy. In particular, the cell parameters of the stable forms, temperatures and heats of phase changes for the two constituents and a proposal of phase diagram are given in this article. Three solid forms are created by mixing in addition with the four solid forms of the pure components. All these solid forms are stabilized on narrow domains of composition, implying a reduced solid-state miscibility of the pentadecanoic and hexadecanoic acids.