1 3 dioxanes as wetting penetrating amp cleansing agents for various textile and leather treatments the 2 unsubstituted analog of compound 19 has been utilized by tucker u s patent no 2 527 078 as an ingredient in detergent mixture for inhibiting the precipitation of lime soaps compound 20 21 and analogs have been prepared and investigated by senkus for insecticidal properties compound 22 has been prepared by morey u s pat no 2 415 021 aliphatic substituted 1 3 dioxacycloalkanes without the prerequisite amino or substituted amino functionality of this invention have been disclosed as skin penetration enhancers by samour and daskalakis eur pat appl ep 268 460 25 may 1988 and particularly 2 nonyl 1 3 dioxolane proceed intern symp control rel bioact mater 17 415 1990 and references cited therein the use of the compounds of the present invention as penetration enhancers in drug delivery is however novel and not predictable from the prior art the aminoalcohol derivatives covered by the general formula i may be prepared by any of the processes known in the literature and are hereby incorporated by reference for example ohashi et al tet lett 29 1185 1988 findeis and whitesides j org chem 52 2838 1987 nakagawa et al tet lett 6281 1987 hino et al j chem soc perkin trans i 1687 1986 koike et al carbohydr res 158 113 1986 kiso et al carbohydr res 158 101 1986 and j carbohydr chem 5 335 1986 schmidt and zimmermann tet lett 481 1986 julina et al helv chim acta 69 368 1986 roush and adam j org chem 50 3752 1985 bernet and vasella tet lett 24.