Solubilities of Amino Acids in Aqueous Solutions of Chloride or Nitrate Salts of Divalent (Mg2+ or Ca2+) Cations

Abstract

The solubilities of glycine, l-leucine, l-phenylalanine, and l-aspartic acid were measured in aqueous MgCl2, Mg(NO3)2, CaCl2,, and Ca(NO3)2 solutions with concentrations ranging from 0 to 2 mol/kg at 298.2 K. The isothermal analytical method was used combined with the refractive index measurements for composition analysis guaranteeing good accuracy. All salts induced a salting-in effect with a higher magnitude for those containing the Ca2+ cation. The nitrate anions also showed stronger binding with the amino acids, thus increasing their relative solubility more than the chloride anions. In particular, calcium nitrate induces an increase in the amino acid solubility from 2.4 (glycine) to 4.6 fold (l-aspartic acid) compared to the corresponding value in water. Amino acid solubility data in aqueous MgCl2 and CaCl2 solutions collected from the open literature were combined with that from this work, allowing us to analyze the relations between the amino acid structure and the salting-in magnitude.