Hydrotropic Behavior of Sodium Salicylate in Presence of Additives

Abstract

It is well known that, like surfactants aggregating at a certain concentration (called critical micelle concentration, CMC), hydrotropes also have minimum hydrotrope concentration (MHC). However, unlike surfactant CMC, this MHC value is usually very high, thereby reducing their application. In this paper we report the results of conductivity and viscosity measurements with a well known hydrotrope sodium salicylate (NaSal) solutions in presence and absence of additives (propanol, PrOH; butanol, BuOH; pentanol, PeOH and tetrabutylammonium bromide, Bu₄NBr). We have found that MHC value of NaSal decreases in presence of additives. Alcohols increase the hydrophobic interactions and decrease the MHC while Bu₄NBr, in addition to ameliorating the hydrophobic interactions, reduces the charge on head groups and MHC decreases more steeply in its presence. Increased solubility of riboflavin in NaSal containing the above additives corroborates the results.

Keywords:

• CMC
• conductivity
• hydrophobic interaction
• hydrotrope
• MHC
• sodium salicylate
• tetrabutylammonium bromide
• viscosity