Measurement of partition coefficients of substituted benzoic acids between two immiscible solvents by hyper-Rayleigh scattering

Abstract

We demonstrate that the hyper-Rayleigh scattering technique can be employed to measure the partition coefficient (k_p) of a solute in a mixture of two immiscible solvents. Specifically, partition coefficients of six substituted benzoic acids in water/toluene (1:1 v/v) and water/chloroform (1:1 v/v) systems have been measured. Our values compare well with the k_p values measured earlier by other techniques. The advantages offered by this technique are also discussed.