Enhancement of the anthracene aqueous solubility by a synergistic effect of alcohols and β-cyclodextrin

The results presented in this paper show that the solubility of anthracene in water increases significantly when β-cyclodextrin and alkanols with carbon numbers from 1 to 4 are added to the solution. The concentrations of the anthracene chosen as a model hydrophobic pollutant were determined using UV–vis spectroscopy. It has been demonstrated that the solubility of anthracene in a 1.1 wt% β-cyclodextrin solution increases by the factor of 45 or 62 when 4 wt% of methanol or ethanol are added, respectively. Obviously, the increase of anthracene solubility is due both to the solvent effect of the alcohols and to the formation of anthracene–β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) “guest–host” complexes. We propose, to use the solubility enhancement based on the β-cyclodextrin/alcohol effect for improving the availability of hydrocarbon pollutants in the biodegradation processes.