The tendency of organic contaminants
(OCs) to partition
between
different phases is a key set of properties that underlie their human
and ecological health impacts and the success of remediation efforts.
A significant challenge associated with these efforts is the need
for accurate partitioning data for an ever-expanding list of OCs and
breakdown products. All-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have
the potential to help generate these data, but existing studies have
applied these techniques only to a limited variety of OCs. Here, we
use established MD simulation approaches to examine the partitioning
of 82 OCs, including many compounds of critical concern, at the water–air
interface. Our predictions of the Henry’s law constant (K
H) and interfacial adsorption coefficients (K
iw, K
ia) correlate
strongly with experimental results, indicating that MD simulations
can be used to predict K
H, K
iw, and K
ia values with mean
absolute deviations of 1.1, 0.3, and 0.3 logarithmic units after correcting
for systematic bias, respectively. A library of MD simulation input
files for the examined OCs is provided to facilitate future investigations
of the partitioning of these compounds in the presence of other phases.
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