Salting-out effect in aqueous NaCl solutions: trends with size and polarity of solute molecules

Salting-out in aqueous NaCl solutions is relevant for the environmental behavior of organic contaminants. In this study, Setschenow (or salting-out) coefficients (K(s) [M(-1)]) for 43 diverse neutral compounds in NaCl solutions were measured using a shared headspace passive dosing method and a negligible depletion solid phase microextraction technique. The results were used to calibrate and evaluate estimation models for K(s). The molar volume of the solute correlated only moderately with K(s) (R(2) = 0.49, SD = 0.052). The polyparameter linear free energy relationship (pp-LFER) model that uses five compound descriptors resulted in a more accurate fit to our data (R(2) = 0.83, SD = 0.031). The pp-LFER analysis revealed that Na(+) and Cl(-) in aqueous solutions increase the cavity formation energy cost and the polar interaction energies toward neutral organic solutes. Accordingly, the salting-out effect increases with the size and decreases with the polarity of the solute molecule. COSMO-RS, a quantum mechanics-based fully predictive model, generally overpredicted the experimental K(s), but the predicted values were moderately correlated with the experimental values (R(2) = 0.66, SD = 0.042). Literature data (n = 93) were predicted by the calibrated pp-LFER and COSMO-RS models with root mean squared errors of 0.047 and 0.050, respectively. This study offers prediction models to estimate K(s), allowing implementation of the salting-out effect in contaminant fate models, linkage of various partition coefficients (such as air-water, sediment-water, and extraction phase-water partition coefficients) measured for fresh water and seawater, and estimation of enhancement of extraction efficiency in analytical procedures.