Effect of Intramolecular Hydrogen Bond Formation on the Abraham Model Solute Descriptors for Oxybenzone

Solute descriptors derived from experimental solubility data for oxybenzone dissolved in 21 different organic solvents indicate that the hydrogen atom on the hydroxyl functional group forms an intramolecular hydrogen bond with the lone electron pair on the oxygen atom of the neighboring >C=O functional group. Group contribution methods developed for estimating the Abraham model solute descriptors from the molecule’s Canonical SMILES code significantly over-estimate the Abraham model’s hydrogen bond acidity solute descriptor of oxybenzone. An informed user-modified Canonical SMILES code is proposed to identify which hydrogen atoms are involved in intramolecular H-bond formation. The identified hydrogen atom(s) can be used to define a new functional/fragment group and numerical group contribution value.