Nature of phase transfer catalysts: Can they be hydrotropes?

Nature of non-surfactant phase transfer catalysts (PTC) has been investigat ed. The questions whether the non-surfactant PTCs can be hydrotropes or hyd rotropes can be used as PTCs have been attended to. Two nonsurfactant PTCs, namely, tetrabutylammonium chloride (TBAC) and 18-crown-6 and two well kno wn hydrotropes, namely, sodium benzoate and procaine hydrochloride have bee n studied. The non-surfactant PTCs are not found to be hydrotropes and the hydrotropes db not show any phase transfer catalytic activity. Implications of these observations with regard to the nature of aggregates formed by hy drotropes in the aqueous and nonaqueous media are important and deserve fur ther study.