Nuclear magnetic resonance studies of microemulsions and related systems: 2-butoxyethanol in water

The 13C chemical shift, T1 and 2H T1 data for 2-butoxyethanol (BE) in D2O as a function of concentration are presented. The nmr parameters are consistent with thermodynamic data for the same system in that it appears that 2-butoxyethanol in water undergoes a pseudo phase transition at about 1.2 M. The chemical shift for each carbon is different in the microphase relative to either aqueous solution or pure BE. The shift differences are due to a combination of factors, conformer population changes, changes in the polarity of the oxygen, and a solvent effect on chemical shift. The more organic the medium, the higher the population of trans relative to gauche conformers. The motion of BE is more restricted in the microphase than in either dilute aqueous solution or in the pure liquid. The number of adsorbed D2O molecules per molecule of BE is less in the microphase than in aqueous solution.