Linear and non-linear relationships between bioconcentration and hydrophobicity: Theoretical consideration

A non-linear relationship (e.g. Gaussian-type) between measured bioconcentration factor (BCF) and octanol/water partition coefficient (KOW) was noted many years ago. Many studies have focused on the cause of the breakdown in the log BCF/log KOW curve for highly hydrophobic chemicals with log KOW > 6. However, there has been little investigation on the theoretical background of this feature for highly hydrophilic chemicals. In this paper, the cause of linear and non-linear relationships between log BCF and log KOW has been investigated on the basis of the partitioning-based mechanism for classified non-ionic and ionisable compounds. For highly hydrophilic compounds, lipid tissue in fish is not the major storage site of chemicals. Uptake from other tissues/organs plays a much more important role than the lipid content, leading to a variation of measured log BCF around 0.5. For hydrophobic chemicals with 0.5 < log KOW < 6, hydrophobicity is the principal driving force of bioconcentration and log BCF increases with increasing log KOW. The log BCF/log KOW curve breaks down for highly hydrophobic chemicals with log KOW > 6. The main reason for this is attributed to the reduced bioavailability of chemicals in water. A linear solvation energy relationship shows that the bioconcentration increases with increasing molecular size by increasing the dispersion interactions between the chemical and lipid content. Bioconcentration decreases with increasing the basicity of hydrophobic compounds by increasing the H-bonding of chemicals with water. Principal component analysis shows that the octanol/water system is the closest system, but not an ideal surrogate, to describe the bioconcentration for hydrophobic compounds as compared with other solvent/water partition systems.

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► Relationship between bioconcentration and hydrophobicity is a Gaussian-type.
► Hydrophobicity is the driving force of bioconcentration for hydrophobic chemicals.
► Lipid tissue is not the storage site of chemicals for highly hydrophilic compounds.
► The reduced bioavailability of chemical results in breakdown in log BCF/log KOW curve.