title: Solubilization in alkanes by alcohols as reverse hydrotropes or "lipotropes".
abstract: Hydrotropes in aqueous systems do not aggregate in micelles, inhibit presence of mesophases and allow significant and progressive solubilization of "insoluble" molecules in water. It was shown that n-alcohols in alkanes develop the same properties, including the power-law for maximum solubilization of "hydrophilic" molecules. The aim of this paper is to highlight properties of reverse hydrotropes or "lipotropes" by taking n-alcohol/alkane mixtures as model systems. So as to establish a clear parallel between lipotropes and hydrotropes the same methodology used to characterize hydrotropes was applied to these systems. The solubilization of solutes insoluble in alkane, i.e. water and a hydrophilic dye in dodecane, enabled by the addition of n-alcohols ( n = 2, 3, 4 and 7) was studied. In parallel, the nonmicellar aggregation state of butan-1-ol and heptan-1-ol in dodecane was investigated by small-angle X-ray scattering. By applying the Porod's treatment the specific area of the H-bond network formed by heptan-1-ol and the area occupied by hydroxyl group in this network were determined as a function of concentration. A correlation between the aggregation of alcohols in dodecane and the solubilization was made. The disrupting of concentrated mesophases by a lipotrope was illustrated by studying the effect of adding n-alcohols to water/oil/extractant ternary systems used in liquid/liquid extraction. Under some conditions the organic phase splits up into two phases: an extractant mesophase and nearly pure oil. The amount of n-alcohols required to make the extractant mesophase disappear was determined for water/alkane/malonamide extractant systems. The influence of the chain length of the n-alcohol on the efficiency as lipotrope was also experimentally studied. The trend obtained was similar to the one observed with the solubilization experiments.
authors.affiliation: Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, IRAMIS, SCM, LIONS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bauduin
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Testard
authors.forename: Th
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zemb