Prediction of Hydrolysis Products of Organic Chemicals under Environmental pH Conditions

Cheminformatics-based software tools can predict the molecular structure of transformation products using a library of transformation reaction schemes. This paper presents the development of such a library for abiotic hydrolysis of organic chemicals under environmentally relevant conditions. The hydrolysis reaction schemes in the library encode the process science gathered from peer-reviewed literature and regulatory reports. Each scheme has been ranked on a scale of one to six based on the median half-life in a data set compiled from literature-reported hydrolysis rates. These ranks are used to predict the most likely transformation route when more than one structural fragment susceptible to hydrolysis is present in a molecule of interest. Separate rank assignments are established for pH 5, 7, and 9 to represent standard conditions in hydrolysis studies required for registration of pesticides in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries. The library is applied to pred...