Modeling of the n-octanol/water partition coefficient of a series of PAHs: QSPR model

Abstract

A simple linear model was used to investigate the correlation between the n-octanol/water partition coefficient (kow) of non-substituted fused polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Among (74) 3D-geometrically tested descriptors calculated using the Dragon software, volume V turned out to be the best descriptor to model the considered endpoint (with a squared correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.9844 and a standard error of estimation (s) of 0.132 log units). The correlation coefficient cross-validation (Q2) between experimental and predicted log kow for training and test sets was 0.9811 (for training set) and 0.9828 (for test set), respectively. The reliability of the proposed model was further illustrated using various evaluation techniques: leave-5-out cross-validation, bootstrap, randomization tests, and validation through the test set.