Bioaccumulative chemicals are either too hard or too soft: Conceptual density functional theory as a screening tool for emerging pollutants

Conceptual density functional theory (CDFT) descriptors were computed to predict the environmental fate of approximately 6,000 widely used industrial chemicals. CDFT descriptors aligned with a molecule's possible bioaccumulation mechanism, i.e., soft chemicals are lipophilic, whereas hard chemicals may bioaccumulate by other mechanisms such as protein binding. The results have provided us with a new "rule of thumb" to guide risk assessment of chemical hazards: suspected persistent organic pollutants are either too hard (η > 0.40 hartree) or too soft (α > 200 Å³). This offers a novel approach to environmental risk assessment using two fundamental properties of a molecule.