Apparent Specific Volume and Apparent Specific Refraction of Some Poly(oxyethylene) Glycols in 1,4-Dioxane and Benzene Solutions at 298.15 K

Summary. The density and refractive index of 1,4-dioxane and benzene solutions of poly(oxyethylene) glycols of the type HO-(CH 2 CH 2 O) n -H (n varying from 4 to 36) were measured at 298.15 K. From the experimental data the apparent specific volume and the apparent specific refraction at infinite dilution were calculated. The limiting apparent specific volume and the limiting apparent specific refraction were found to be inversely proportional to the number average molecular weight of solute. From the limiting apparent specific values at the infinite degree of polymerization, the partial molar volume and partial molar refraction of the monomeric unit were calculated. The partial molar volume as well as the partial molar refraction of the investigated compounds at infinite dilution are additive and depend linearly on the number of oxyethylene groups. The volumetric data were analyzed in terms of the intrinsic volume of solute molecules and by a void partial molar volume. The packing density of the investigated compounds approaches a uniform value as the size of the molecules increases and in both solvents limiting values are reached

Solutions of ionic liquids with diverse aliphatic and aromatic solutes – Phase behavior and potentials for applications:A review article

This article principally reviews our research related to liquid–liquid and solid–liquid phase behavior of imidazolium- and phosphonium-based ionic liquids, mainly having bistriflamide ([NTf2]−) or triflate ([OTf]−) anions, with several aliphatic and aromatic solutes (target molecules). The latter include: (i) diols and triols: 1,2-propanediol, 1,3-propanediol and glycerol; (ii) polymer poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG): average molecular mass 200, 400 and 2050 – PEG200 (liquid), PEG400 (liquid) and PEG2050 (solid), respectively; (iii) polar aromatic compounds: nicotine, aniline, phenolic acids (vanillic, ferulic and caffeic acid,), thymol and caffeine and (iv) non-polar aromatic compounds (benzene, toluene, p-xylene). In these studies, the effects of the cation and anion, cation alkyl chain and PEG chain lengths on the observed phase behaviors were scrutinized. Thus, one of the major observations is that the anion – bistriflamide/triflate – selection usually had strong, sometimes really remarkable effects on the solvent abilities of the studied ionic liquids. Namely, in the case of the hydrogen-bonding solutes, the ionic liquids with the triflate anion generally exhibited substantially higher solubility than those having the bistriflamide anion. Nevertheless, with the aromatic compounds the situation was the opposite – in most of the cases it was the bistriflamide anion that favoured solubility. Moreover, our other studies confirmed the ability of PEG to dissolve both polar and non-polar aromatic compounds. Therefore, two general possibilities of application of alternative, environmentally acceptable, solvents of tuneable solvent properties appeared. One is to use homogeneous mixtures of two ionic liquids having [NTf2]− and [OTf]− anions as mixed solvents. The other, however, envisages the application of homogeneous and heterogeneous (PEG + ionic liquid) solutions as tuneable solvents for aromatic solutes. Such mixed solvents have potential applications in separation of the aforesaid target molecules from their aqueous solutions or in extraction from original matrices. From the fundamental point of view the phase equilibrium studies reviewed herein and the diversity of the pure compounds – ionic liquids and target molecules – represent a good base for the discussion of interactions between the molecules that exist in the studied solutions

Crowding Alone Cannot Account for Cosolute Effect on Amyloid Aggregation

Amyloid fiber formation is a specific form of protein aggregation, often resulting from the misfolding of native proteins. Aimed at modeling the crowded environment of the cell, recent experiments showed a reduction in fibrillation halftimes for amyloid-forming peptides in the presence of cosolutes that are preferentially excluded from proteins and peptides. The effect of excluded cosolutes has previously been attributed to the large volume excluded by such inert cellular solutes, sometimes termed “macromolecular crowding”. Here, we studied a model peptide that can fold to a stable monomeric β-hairpin conformation, but under certain solution conditions aggregates in the form of amyloid fibrils. Using Circular Dichroism spectroscopy (CD), we found that, in the presence of polyols and polyethylene glycols acting as excluded cosolutes, the monomeric β-hairpin conformation was stabilized with respect to the unfolded state. Stabilization free energy was linear with cosolute concentration, and grew with molecular volume, as would also be predicted by crowding models. After initiating the aggregation process with a pH jump, fibrillation in the presence and absence of cosolutes was followed by ThT fluorescence, transmission electron microscopy, and CD spectroscopy. Polyols (glycerol and sorbitol) increased the lag time for fibril formation and elevated the amount of aggregated peptide at equilibrium, in a cosolute size and concentration dependent manner. However, fibrillation rates remained almost unaffected by a wide range of molecular weights of soluble polyethylene glycols. Our results highlight the importance of other forces beyond the excluded volume interactions responsible for crowding that may contribute to the cosolute effects acting on amyloid formation

Apparent molar volume and apparent molar refraction of Mono-, Di-, Tri-, and Tetra(oxyethylene) glycol in aqueous, 1,4-dioxane, and benzene solutions at 298.15K,”Monatshefte fur Chemie,

Summary. The density and refractive index of aqueous, 1,4-dioxane, and benzene solutions of poly (oxyethylene) glycols of the type HO-(CH 2 CH 2 O) n -H (n varying from 1 to 4) were measured at 298.15 K. From these experimental data the apparent molar volume and the apparent molar refraction at infinite dilution were calculated. The limiting apparent molar volume of the investigated compounds in a definite solvent depends linearly on the number of oxyethylene groups. From these data, the volume of the monomeric unit was evaluated and found to be greater in non-aqueous solvents than in water. The limiting apparent molar refraction of the solute for the investigated systems, within the experimental uncertainties, is equal to the molar refraction of the pure solute. The electronic polarizability of the solute molecule depends linearly on the number of monomeric units and the ratio of the electronic polarizability to the molecular van der Waals volume is constant and independent of the number of oxyethylene groups