Predicting Partition Coefficients of Short-Chain Chlorinated Paraffin Congeners by Combining COSMO-RS and Fragment Contribution Model Approaches

24 June 2020, Version 1
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

Chlorinated paraffins (CPs) are highly complex mixtures of polychlorinated n-alkanes with differing chain lengths and chlorination patterns. Knowledge on physicochemical properties of individual congeners is limited but needed to understand their environmental fate and potential risks. This work combines a sophisticated but time-demanding quantum chemically based method COSMO-RS and a fast-running fragment contribution approach to establish models to predict partition coefficients of a large number of short-chain chlorinated paraffin (SCCP) congeners. Molecular fragments of a length of up to C4 in CP molecules were counted and used as explanatory variables to develop linear regression models for predicting COSMO-RS-calculated values. The resulting models can quickly provide COSMO-RS predictions for octanol–water (Kow), air–water (Kaw), and octanol–air (Koa) partition coefficients of SCCP congeners with an accuracy of 0.1–0.3 log units root mean squared errors (RMSE). The model predictions for Kow agree with experimental values for individual constitutional isomers within 1 log unit. The ranges of partition coefficients for each SCCP congener group were computed, which successfully reproduced experimental log Kow ranges of industrial CP mixtures. As an application of the developed approach, the predicted Kaw and Koa were plotted to evaluate the bioaccumulation potential of each SCCP congener group.

Keywords

QSPR
COSMO-RS
Chlorinated paraffins
partition coefficient
Equilibrium partitioning

Supplementary materials

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Endo SCCPpartitioning SI 20200622
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Endo SCCPpartitioning SITables 20200622
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