Compound-class specific estimation of solid organic compound vapour pressure and aqueous solubility from simple molecular structure descriptors and the temperature of melting

Abstract

For many solid organic compounds, experimental data for their aqueous solubility and vapour pressure are lacking. Therefore, estimation procedures for these compound properties are needed. On theoretical grounds, this study derives a general compound-class specific estimation procedure for solid organic compound aqueous solubility and vapour pressure. The estimation procedure uses a linear combination of simple molecular descriptors for the molecular structure variation within the compound class and a polynomial for the temperature of melting. This procedure is applied to the vapour pressure of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), alkylated PAHs, polychlorinated dibenzo- p-dioxins and biphenyls and to the aqueous solubility of PAHs, methylated PAHs, chlorinated benzenes, polychlorinated and polybrominated biphenyls, chlorinated phenols, cresols, and chlorinated 2-methoxyphenols. The standard error of the solid vapour pressure or aqueous solubility estimates from the various compound-class specific regression equations was about 0.2 log units. For PAHs, chlorobenzenes, and PCBs used in the present study, aqueous solubility estimated from the regression equations taking the temperature of melting equal to 298 K, i.e. assuming that the compounds are in a hypothetical liquid state, was equal, within 0.1–0.3 log units to the subcooled liquid solubility estimated from literature regression equations.