Partition coefficients for nonane and its isomers in the rat

Abstract

Jet Fuel 8 (JP-8) is a major fuel source used by US and NATO military. JP-8 is a complex mixture of aliphatic and aromatic isomers of hydrocarbons. Tissue/blood partition coefficient (PC) values are chemical-specific parameters used in modeling the kinetic behavior of chemicals. The partition coefficient values for n-alkanes tend to increase with the increasing carbon number, but less is known about the trend for isomers of n-alkanes. PC values were obtained for the n-alkane nonane (C9) and five of its isomers, namely 3-methyloctane, 4-ethylheptane, 2,3-dimethylheptane, 2,2,4-trimethylhexane, 2,2,4,4-tetramethylpentane. The blood:air and tissue:air PC values correlated with the published log octanol/water (O:W) PC values for n-nonane and its isomers. Experimentally determined blood:air and tissue:air PC values for n-nonane with the largest O:W value were greatest and smallest for the isomer 2,2,4,4-tetramethylpentane with the lowest O:W value. As expected the fat tissue had the highest PC values and muscle the lowest for n-nonane and its isomers. For each tissue, a linear relationship was observed between the tissue/blood PC values for the isomers of n-nonane and n-nonane. This suggests that tissue/blood PC values for all isomers of an alkane could be estimated using data collected from only a sub-set of alkanes of equal carbon number. These reported tissue/blood PC values will support the development of a jet fuel physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model.

Keywords::

• Partition coefficient
• alkane hydrocarbons
• JP-8 fuel
• octanol:water
• physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modelling

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Kristyn Flynt for her contributions in the laboratory and Dr Anne Marie Zimeri for her comments on this manuscript.

Declaration of interest

This research was funded by AFOSR (FA9550-07-1-0132).