Molecular hologram derived quantitative structure–property relationships to predict physico-chemical properties of polychlorinated biphenyls

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) congeners with various degrees of chlorination and substitution patterns are among the most widespread and persistent man-made organic pollutants. They are toxic, lipophilic and tend to be bioaccumulated. The knowledge of the physico-chemical properties is very useful to explain the environmental behavior of PCBs and to perform an exposure assessment. In this paper, we have used a new molecular representation, the molecular hologram, to generate quantitative structure–property relationship models to predict the physico-chemical properties of biphenyl and all of its chlorinated congeners. The investigated properties include 1-octanol/water partition coefficient (logKow), aqueous solubility (−logSw), aqueous activity coefficient (−logYw), Total molecular surface area, Henry’s law constant (logH). The results show that this new quantitative structure–activity relationship approach presents highly predictive models for important physico-chemical properties of PCBs.