Determination of the subcooled liquid solubilities of PAHs in partitioning batch experiments

Subcooled liquid solubility is the water solubility for a hypothetical state of liquid. It is an important parameter for multicomponent nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which can exist as liquids even though most of the solutes are solid in their pure form at ambient temperature. So far, subcooled liquid solubilities were estimated from the solid water solubility and fugacity ratio of the solid and (subcooled) liquid phase, but rarely derived from experimental data. In our study, partitioning batch experiments were performed to determine the subcooled liquid solubility of PAHs in NAPL-water system. For selected PAH, a series of batch experiments were carried out at increased mole fractions of the target component in the NAPL and at a constant NAPL/water volume ratio. The equilibrium aqueous PAH concentrations were measured with HPLC and/or GC-MS. The subcooled liquid solubility was derived by extrapolation of the experimental equilibrium aqueous concentration to a mole fraction of unity. With the derived subcooled liquid solubility, the fugacity ratio and enthalpy of fusion of the solute were also estimated. Our results show a good agreement between the experimentally determined and published data.

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► Partitioning batch experiment to determinate the saturated aqueous phase concentration.
► Extrapolating the experimental results to obtain the subcooled liquid solubility.
► Activity coefficient, fugacity ratio and enthalpy of fusion of the test PAHs were derived.