Interaction Between an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Ionic Liquid Benzalkonium Salicylate and Small Biomolecules in Aqueous Solution: UV Absorption,Conductivity, and Volumetric Study

UV absorption spectroscopy, electrical conductivity and density experiments have been used to investigate the interactions of some small biomolecules (amino acids/dipeptides) with an active pharmaceutical ingredient in ionic liquid form (API-IL), benzalkonium salicylate (BaSal), in aqueous solution. A number of useful parameters, such as critical micellar concentration (cmc), aggregation number (N_agg) and limiting molar conductivity (Λ₀) of BaSal, standard partial molar volumes (\(V_{2,\phi }^{ \circ }\)), corresponding volumes of transfer from water to aqueous BaSal solutions (Δ_trV^o), standard partial molar expansibilities (\(E_{\phi }^{ \circ }\)), hydration number (n_H) of small biomolecules, as well as the binding constants (K_b) for small biomolecule–BaSal complexes have been evaluated. The dependence of the properties on concentration, temperature and alkyl chain length of amino acids/dipeptides is examined. The results are used to identify the solute–solvent physicochemical interactions occurring in the studied systems.