The Solvation Properties of the Aliphatic Alcohols

Abstract

Solubilities of solute gases and vapours, as log L, where L is the Ostwald solubility coefficient, in the alkan-1-ols from methanol to decan-1-ol have been correlated through the solvation equation of Abraham. It is shown that there is a regular progression of solvent properties from methanol to decan-1-ol, except for the solvent hydrogen-bond basicity that remains the same along the series, and, indeed, is the same as that of water. A slightly different solvation equation is used to correlate the partition of solutes from water to the dry alkanols. For the longer chain alkanols, the coefficients in the solvation equations approach those in equations for partition from water to the wet (water-saturated) alkanols, showing that the solvation properties of the wet and dry alkanols are quite close for the higher alkanol homologues.