Volumes of mixtures of alcohols in water at 25°C

Many studies support the idea that alcohols in water undergo microphase transitions which are, in many respects, similar to micellization. To investigate the interactions in these systems even further, the volumes of transfer of normal alcohols of intermediate chain length, kept near infinite dilution, were measured from water to aqueous solutions of 2-propanol and 2-butoxyethanol. These results were compared with the volumes of transfer of the same alcohols to aqueous solutions of octyldimethylamine oxide, a well-characterized non-ionic surfactant. The trends observed are all very similar, exhibiting in many cases a maximum in the transition region. This tends to confirm the formation of mixed aggregates in aqueous mixtures of alcohols, but, in a general way, it is also shown that the magnitude of an extremum in the functions of transfer is related to the relative hydrophobicities of the present solutes, the extremum appearing in most cases only when the transferred solute is more hydrophobic than the main solute.