CHOOSING A COSOLVENT - SOLUBILIZATION OF NAPHTHALENE AND COSOLVENT PROPERTY

The addition of an organic cosolvent to water can increase the aqueous solubility of many hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs). This work ex amines the correlations between the change of naphthalene solubility a nd various physicochemical properties of the cosolvent added to the sy stem. Results show that the dielectric constant and surface tension do not correlate with the solubilization power of cosolvent toward napht halene. The solubility parameter correlates well with increases in nap hthalene solubility and therefore provides a convenient tool when scre ening cosolvents for their ability to enhance HOC solubility in variou s environmental engineering applications. Other properties investigate d include the octanol/water partition coefficient, interfacial tension , E(T)(30), viscosity, and hydrogen bonding capacities.