Theoretical Studies on Perfluorinated Acids of Environmental Significance

Date

2015-09-04

Authors

Hidalgo-Puertas, Abdel

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Abstract

A new approach for predicting octanol-water partition coefficients (Log P) of linear perfluorinated compounds, making use of the limited experimental data available, previous observations and the consistent similarities observed between the experimental and calculated (with electronic structure methods and using EPI suite) slopes of the linear plots of Log P values with the number of carbon atoms (N = 2 to 11) is described here. Eight families of linear organic compounds were investigated: carboxylic acids, perfluorinated carboxylic acids, sulfonic acids and perfluorinated sulfonic acids, together with their corresponding conjugate bases. To the best of our knowledge, this work reports the first application of density functional theory methods to the calculation of Log P values of perfluorinated compounds. A second part of the thesis, describes the study of the thermodynamic stability of the PFOA family of 39 structural isomers with the M06-2X, LC-ωPBE, B97D and B3LYP functionals and with the PM6 method. The PM6 results closely resemble the M06-2X results for neutral PFOAs, but greatly disagree regarding anions. The four functionals applied behave similarly from a qualitative point of view, but quantitatively speaking, the LC-ωPBE and B97D results are between the M06-2X and B3LYP stability results. M06-2X ranks highly substituted isomers as more stable than did B3LYP, and ranks less-branched isomers quite low in relative stability compared to B3LYP. Various similarities with a former PFOSs study applying the M06-2X and B3LYP functionals have been identified. The degree of branching within structural isomers cannot always be precisely determined, and is not the only aspect that determines thermodynamic stability; the pattern of substitution seems to also play a significant role.

Description

Keywords

Perfluorinated compounds, Log P, Kow, octanol-water partition coefficient, isomer profiling, PFOA, PFOS

Citation