Studies on the ion-association of methylene blue and salicylic acid in neat and mixed binary solvents

Thiazine dye, methylene blue forms 1:1 ion-associate with salicylic acid in aqueous phase and the ion-associate can be extracted in a series of non-polar non-coordinating solvent systems. The influence of different parameters on the process of ion-association has been studied. The suitability of a number of phenolic precursors for the formation of ion-associate with methylene blue has been tested. Charge-transfer absorption band of the dye molecules in relation to ion-pair has been followed in a sequence of neat and mixed binary solvents and the dependence of the absorption maxima has been found to correlate well with the solvent polarity.