DISPLAYING MULTIMEDIA ENVIRONMENTAL PARTITIONING BY TRIANGULAR DIAGRAMS

摘要

It is suggested that equilateral triangular diagrams are a useful method of depicting the equilibrium partitioning of organic chemicals among the three primary environmental media of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the "organosphere" (natural organic matter and biotic lipids and waxes). The technique is useful for grouping chemicals into classes according to their partitioning tendencies, for depicting the incremental effects of substituents such as alkyl groups and chlorine, and for showing how partitioning changes in response to changes in temperature.