Solubility enhancement of dioxins and PCBs by surfactant monomers and micelles quantified with polymer depletion techniques

Partitioning of super-hydrophobic organic contaminants (SHOCs) to dissolved or colloidal materials such as surfactants can alter their behaviour by enhancing apparent aqueous solubility. Relevant partition constants are, however, challenging to quantify with reasonable accuracy. Partition constants to colloidal surfactants can be measured by introducing a polymer (PDMS) as third phase with known PDMS-water partition constant in combination with the mass balance approach. We quantified partition constants of PCBs and PCDDs (log K 5.8-8.3) between water and sodium dodecyl sulphate monomers (K) and micelles (K). A refined, recently introduced swelling-based polymer loading technique allowed highly precise (4.5-10% RSD) and fast