Octanol/water partition coefficient determination by VALLME
In most of the applications, microextraction techniques are employed to isolate and/or enrich target analytes from a given sample in order to make easier (more selective and sensitive) their final determination by an appropriate instrumental technique. However, the versatility of these techniques allows their use in the determination of chemical constants. Researchers from the University of Alicante at Spain have developed a vortex assisted liquid-liquid microextraction (VALLME) procedure to determine the octanol-water partition coefficient (K ow ) in a simple way. K ow is an important parameter that can be used for different purposes like the studies of the bioaccumulation rates of toxicants since K ow is similar to the lipid-water partition coefficient or the proper selection of an extractant in a extraction technique since K ow provides information about the polarity of a compound. In brief, the proposed VALLME procedure consist on the addition of 50 µL of 1-octanol to 10 mL...