Profiling of Disubstituted Chloroacetamides’ Potential Biological Activity by Liquid Chromatography

Modern agriculture relies heavily on the use of pesticides, with one-third of them being herbicides. Chloroacetamides are the most widely used herbicides because of their high effectiveness, but their extensive use poses environmental challenges and threatens the health of living organisms due to toxicity risks. Since the pharmacokinetic behavior and toxicity of a compound are influenced by its lipophilicity, this essential physicochemical parameter for disubstituted chloroacetamides was determined in silico and experimentally through thin-layer chromatography on reversed phases (RPTLC C18/UV254s) in mixtures of water and distinct organic modifiers. The pharmacokinetic profile of chloroacetamides was analyzed by using the BOILED-Egg model. The correlation between the obtained chromatographic parameters and software-based lipophilicity, pharmacokinetic, and ecotoxicity predictors of the studied chloroacetamides was assessed by using linear regression, but more comprehensive insight was obtained through multivariate methods—Cluster Analysis and Principal Component Analysis. It was observed that the total number of carbon atoms in the structure of their molecules, along with the type of hydrocarbon substituents, are the most important factors affecting lipophilicity, pharmacokinetics, and potential toxicity to non-target organisms.