High-Throughput Determination of Octanol-Water Partition Coefficients by Ultrasound-Assisted Liquid-Phase Microextraction

Abstract

A method of high-throughput determination, which is based on ultrasound-assisted liquid-phase microextraction, was developed to measure directly the partition coefficients of n-octanol-water. In ultrasound-assisted liquid-phase microextraction, ultrasonic energy can facilitate the mass transfer process of six or more microextractors simultaneously. Therefore, high-throughput determination of n-octanol-water partition coefficients can be performed favorably, and the equilibrium time of each microextractor can be decreased effectively. Several experimental parameters including ultrasonic power and frequency, centrifugation conditions, extractant volume and sample concentration were analyzed and optimized at 25°C. Under the optimum conditions, it only takes 2 min to reach extraction equilibrium, and the solutions of sample can be separated by centrifugation in 4 min. After centrifugation, the concentrations in n-octanol phases are analyzed with gas chromatography. The method was further evaluated with eight reference compounds and the findings demonstrated that this method is suitable to determine the partition coefficients of organic compounds accurately and quickly. Next, the method was exploited to measure the partition coefficients of n-octanol-water containing 20 organic compounds, which cover the [Formula: see text] values from 0.05 to 4.36, with comparatively low relative standard deviation (RSD) directly. The results of this study illustrated that the RSD (n = 6) was under 3%.