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

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.