The role of ethanol in extremely diluted solutions

Abstract

We carried out a systematic study on the role of ethanol as a cosolvent in the preparation of aqueous extremely diluted solutions (EDS). We have studied EDS prepared in water containing 1 % ethanol and measured their electrical conductivity and heat of mixing to determine how these solutions differ from those prepared in pure water. The results showed that, as occurs also for the EDS in water, these ethanolic solutions exhibit peculiar effects relating to container volume and storage time (ageing). Our data show a remarkable increase in the conductivity of the EDS in 1 % ethanol, as compared to EDS prepared in water solvent, especially after prolonged storage higher than about 250 days (ageing effect). In each case, the values of conductivity for the hydroalcoholic solvent were approximately four times those for water after an ageing period of 2,178 days. For the study of volume effect, we found that conductivity changes only slightly with decreasing volume. It’s important to underline that the studied volumes were in the 0.25/2.0 mL range. The calorimetric measurements reveal that the presence of ethanol affects heat of mixing with alkaline solutions differently compared to the conductivity. In fact, heat of mixing is not very sensitive to the presence of ethanol, but in contrast with conductivity it shows remarkable sensitivity to volume effects. Our working hypothesis to account for these peculiarities is the presence of water molecule aggregates.