Browsing by Author "Gharbi, Hind"
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- Searching for an experimental procedure for the measurement of Alkane-water partition coefficientPublication . Gharbi, Hind; Ferreira, Olga; Pinho, Simão; El Aissi, RadhiaThe amount and variety of pollutants that are detectable and toxic, even in small concentrations, has been growing. Despite the importance of studying these chemicals and their effect on the environment, there is a lack not only of partition coefficients data of these pollutants between water and alkanes, but also of experimental protocols to measure that information with accuracy. This information is essential to predict their fate once released in the environment. In this context, the main objectives of this work were to perform a literature review about the methodologies used to measure partition coefficients, to collect and analyze a database of partition coefficients of compounds with diverse chemical structure between water and alkanes and, finally, to implement an experimental procedure to measure the partition coefficients at 298.15 K. A variant of the shake-flask method was combined with UV-Visible spectroscopy and refractive index methods of analysis to perform the partition coefficients measurements between isooctane and water (Pisoo/w). Two solutes for which the solubility data are well established, such as toluene and benzoic acid, were selected, covering a wide range of numerical values of the partition coefficients. Hopefully, after, the methodology will be applied on compounds highly relevant from the environmental point of view, but not yet studied. Solubility measurements were also carried out as this type of data are essential for designing the partition coefficients experiments. In general, the results obtained are in close agreement with the scarce information available in literature. The results of the partition coefficient of toluene was logPisoo/w = 3.24 ± 0.07 and the distribution ratio of benzoic acid was log Disoo/w = 0.26 ± 0.03. The errors obtained in the corresponding material balances were 3% and 7% for toluene and benzoic acid, respectively.