Metal cations toxicity: An inorganic interpretation

Abstract

Chemical hardness is one of the useful parameters giving information about the toxic nature of the structures. In the present work, absolute chemical hardness imparted to the science by Pearson, the hydration enthalpies, the element's electronegativity, as calculated by Batsanov (using the force constants of the bonds), the calculated electrostatic charge on the hydrated cations, the absolute radii for the metals and the effective nuclear charges, were correlated with available toxicology data for a series of metal cations (namely Hg2+, Cd2+, Cu2+ and K+) in order to obtain, from a physicochemical point of view, a better understanding of the deleterious actions of metal cations on living organisms. A series of linear curves and empirical equations were obtained, providing a convincing picture of the correlation toxicity-physical inorganic chemistry.