STRUCTURE-ACTIVITY-RELATIONSHIPS FOR BIODEGRADATION - A CRITICAL-REVIEW

Given the general lack of experimental data, at the moment an increasi ng number of models are being developed that may be used to predict th e environmental fate of organic chemicals, based soley on their chemic al structure or physico-chemical properties. For most organic chemical s, biodegradation is the dominant environmental removal process. With the aim of assessing the limitations of Quantitative Structure Biodegr adation Relationships (QSBRs) presently available, this contribution r eviews the approaches used to derive QSBRs and on the results obtained . First an introduction is given on the general principles that form t he fundamentals of most QSBRs developed so far, including a summary of the methods and the descriptors most commonly used. Subsequently a nu mber of QSBRs reported in literature and their limitations are discuss ed. Finally, some aspects of the integrated approach that needs to be followed in order to be able to comfortably predict ''real world'' bio degradation rates in soil and water, is presented.