Predicting physico-chemical properties of polychlorinated diphenyl ethers (PCDEs):potential persiste

Polychlorinated diphenyl ethers(PCDEs) have received more and more concerns as a category of potentialpersistent organic pollutants( POPs). Modeling its environmental fate and exposure assessment require a number offundamental physico-chemical properties. However, the experimental data are currently limited due to the difficulty inanalysis caused by the complexity of PCDE congeners. As an alternative, the quantitative structure propertyrelationship(QSPR) approach could be used. In this paper, twelve kinds of molecular connectivity indices(MCIs) ofall 209 possible molecular structure patterns of PCDEs were calculated. Based on 106 PCDEs with three observedphysico-chemical properties-vapour pressure(PoL), aqueous solubility(Sw) and n-octanol/water(Kow) and theirMCIs data, a series of QSPR equations were established using multiple linear regression(MLR) method. As aresult, three equations with best performance were selected mainly from the view of high regression coefficient(R)and low standard error( SE). All of them showed significant relationship and high accuracy. With these equationsthe properties of other 103 patterns of PCDEs without the reported observed values were predicted. Furthermore,three partition properties for PCDE congeners-Henry' s Law constants(H), partition coefficients between gas/water(Kgw) and gas/n-octanol ( Kgo ) were calculated according to the internal relationship among these six properties.These observed and predicted values, in contrast with the criteria listed in the Stockholm treaty about POPs whichhas been signed by more than ninety countries in May 2001, illustrated that most of PCDEs congeners are potentialpersistent organic pollutants. As all descriptors/predictors are derived just from the molecular structure itself andwithout the import of any empirical parameters, this method is impersonal and promising for the estimation ofphysico-chemical properties of PCDEs.