The aquatic toxicity of anionic surfactants to Daphnia magna—A comparative QSAR study of linear alkylbenzene sulphonates and ester sulphonates

• Published in: Chemosphere (Oxford) Vol. 63; no. 9; pp. 1443 - 1450
• Main Authors: Hodges, Geoff, Roberts, David W., Marshall, Stuart J., Dearden, John C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01-06-2006; Elsevier
• Subjects: Alkanesulfonic Acids - chemistry; Alkanesulfonic Acids - toxicity; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Animals; Anionic surfactant; Anions; Applied ecology; Aquatic toxicity; Biological and medical sciences; Daphnia - drug effects; Daphnia magna; Ecotoxicology, biological effects of pollution; Ester sulphonate; Esters - chemistry; Esters - toxicity; Freshwater; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Hydrolysis; Micelles; QSAR Daphnia magna; Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship; Surface-Active Agents - chemistry; Surface-Active Agents - toxicity; Water Pollutants, Chemical - toxicity; Anionic surfactant; Aquatic toxicity; QSAR Daphnia magna; Ester sulphonate; Ecotoxicology; Toxicity; Cladocera; Crustacea; Ester; Structure activity relation; Arthropoda; Invertebrata; Branchiopoda; Daphnia magna; Comparative study
• ISSN: 0045-6535; 1879-1298
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2005.10.001

This paper develops quantitative structure activity relationships (QSARs) for the acute aquatic toxicity of the anionic surfactants linear alkylbenzene sulphonates (LAS) and ester sulphonates (ES) to
Daphnia magna, the aim being to investigate the modes of action by comparing the QSARs for the two types of surfactant. The generated data for ES have been used to develop a QSAR correlating toxicity with calculated log
P values: log(1/EC50)
=
0.78
log
P
+
1.37. This equation has an intercept 1.1
log units lower than a QSAR for linear alkylbenzene sulphonates (LAS). The findings suggest that either ES surfactants act by a different mode of action to LAS and other anionic surfactants or the log
P calculation method introduces a systematic overestimate when applied to ES.