Salinity impacts on water solubility and n‐octanol/water partition coefficients of selected pesticides and oil constituents

Salinity has been reported to influence the water solubility of organic chemicals entering marine ecosystems. However, limited data are available on salinity impacts for chemicals potentially entering seawater. Impacts on water solubility would correspondingly impact chemical sorption as well as overall bioavailability and exposure estimates used in the regulatory assessment. The pesticides atrazine, fipronil, bifenthrin, and cypermethrin, as well as the crude oil constituent dibenzothiophene together with 3 of its alkyl derivatives, all have different polarities and were selected as model compounds to demonstrate the impact of salinity on their solubility and partitioning behavior. The n‐octanol/water partition coefficient (KOW) was measured in both distilled‐deionized water and artificial seawater (3.2%). All compounds had diminished solubility and increased KOW values in artificial seawater compared with distilled‐deionized water. A linear correlation curve estimated salinity may increase the log KOW value by 2.6%/1 log unit increase in distilled water (R2 = 0.97). Salinity appears to generally decrease the water solubility and increase the partitioning potential. Environmental fate estimates based on these parameters indicate elevated chemical sorption to sediment, overall bioavailability, and toxicity in artificial seawater. These dramatic differences suggest that salinity should be taken into account when exposure estimates are made for marine organisms. Environ Toxicol Chem 2017;36:2274–2280. © 2017 SETAC