Dear Salman,

Generally, if you have organic compounds that are mixed or soluble in a system of oil and water and you add a salt like NaCl, a salting out effect is taking place. In the salting out process, the organic compounds (acid, base or neutral organic compounds) are transferred from the water phase to the oily phase due to the stronger affinity of the salt molecule to the water molecules which forces the organic molecules to escape to the oily phase. In a similar manner, sodium sulfate can behave like sodium chloride and the addition of Na2SO4 to the system of water/oil results in the escape of the organic molecules to the oily phase (salting out effect).

Summary: An addition of Na2SO4 to water/oil system decreases the solubility of organic compounds (acid and base) in water, thus forcing the organic moieties to move to the oily phase.

Please note, that increasing the temperature of the system from 0 C to 32.4 C increases the solubility of sodium sulfate more than 10- fold. Therefore, resulting in a decrease in the solubility of the organic compounds in water.

For more on the salting out process, please see the following link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_out

Hoping this will be helpful,

Rafik

Dear Salman

1-definition:

Sodium sulfate is an important compound of sodium. When anhydrous, it is a white crystalline solid of formula Na2SO4. The decahydrate, Na2SO4 10H2O, is known as Glauber's salt. Sodium sulfate is mainly used for the manufacture of detergents and in the Kraft process of paper pulping, though it has many other uses. About half of the world's production is from the natural mineral form of the decahydrate (mirabilite), and half from by-products of chemical processes.

2-Physical and chemical properties

Sodium sulfate is chemically very stable - it does not decompose, even if heated, and it does not react with oxidizing or reducing agents at normal temperatures. At high temperatures, it can be reduced to sodium sulfide. It is a neutral salt, with a pH of 7 when dissolved in water, because it is derived from a strong acid (sulfuric acid) and a strong base (sodium hydroxide).In aqueous solution, some reactions are possible. Sodium sulfate reacts with an equivalent amount of sulfuric acid to give an equilibrium concentration of acid salts, such as sodium hydrogen sulfate.

Please check the following link to read full publication.

http://www.vias.org/genchem/inorgcomp_sodiumsulfate.html

Good luck

Marius

The effect of Na2SO4 on solubility of organic basic and acidic compounds in water may increase the solubility of acids & bases .