Figure 2. Melting curves for saturated wax esters. At the Tm, the symmetric stretching frequency of -CH2- groups of acid chains increases from ~2850 cm-1 to ~2854 cm-1. Numbers indicate the total number of carbon atoms in each molecule. Except for the shortest wax (C12:0-14:0), each compound had an equal number of carbons in the alcohol and fatty acid moieties.