A quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) analysis of aliphatic alcohols is presented. Four physicochemical properties were studied: boiling point (BP), n-octanol-water partition coefficient (lg P(OW)), water solubility (lg W) and the chromatographic retention indices (RI) on different polar stationary phases. In order to investigate the quantitative structure-property relationship of aliphatic alcohols, the molecular structure ROH is divided into two parts, R and OH to generate structural parameter. It was proposed that the property is affected by three main factors for aliphatic alcohols, alkyl group R, substituted group OH, and interaction between R and OH. On the basis of the polarizability effect index (PEI), previously developed by Cao, the novel molecular polarizability effect index (MPEI) combined with odd-even index (OEI), the sum eigenvalues of bond-connecting matrix (SX(1CH)) previously developed in our team, were used to predict the property of aliphatic alcohols. The sets of molecular descriptors were derived directly from the structure of the compounds based on graph theory. QSPR models were generated using only calculated descriptors and multiple linear regression techniques. These QSPR models showed high values of multiple correlation coefficient (R > 0.99) and Fisher-ratio statistics. The leave-one-out cross-validation demonstrated the final models to be statistically significant and reliable.
Keywords: aliphatic alcohols; boiling points; n-octanol-water partition coefficient; quantitative structure property relationship; retention indices; water solubility.