Henry's Law Constants (Solubilities)

www.henrys-law.org

Table of contents

1) Introduction

Other Sources of Information Calculations in atmospheric chemistry depend strongly on the availability of kinetic and thermodynamic data. For gas-phase chemistry, evaluations such as the IUPAC or JPL data sets greatly facilitate obtaining reliable values. However, no such comprehensive compilation exists for Henry's law constants (solubilities) for tropospheric modeling of clouds and aerosol particles. Waste water treatment is another research area where Henry's law constants are needed since solubility affects volatilization of toxic compounds into the air.

I have started to gather data from different sources. The Henry's law constants kH, which can (unfortunately) be defined in several ways and expressed using different units, have been converted into a uniform format (unit: mol dm-3 atm-1). The current version contains about 2200 data entries for more than 900 species collected from over 250 references. The printed document contains 107 pages.

2) Downloading instructions

The list is available here both as a postscript and a pdf file.
The postscript format is better for printing. The layout looks best if you print double-sided on A4 paper. However, I think printing on letter-sized paper will work, too. To print postscript files on almost any non-postscript printer, you can get the program Ghostscript.
The pdf file can be read with the Acrobat reader. It can be used to search the document electronically.

To save disk space and reduce your downloading time, the files have been compressed into zip archives. To extract them you can for example use InfoZip which is available for unix, os/2, windows and several other platforms.

postscript file (273 KB) henry-ps.zip
pdf file (425 KB) henry-pdf.zip

If you are interested in obtaining a copy please download it here from the net. Due to the increased volume of the list I can't send copies via snail mail anymore.

3) Copyright

You can download the list of Henry's law constants for non-commercial use under the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike Licence

4) Frequently asked questions

What kind of data is included in the list?

The list contains Henry's law constants for several organic and inorganic species in water. The Henry's law constant is defined here as the ratio of the aqueous-phase concentration of a chemical to its equilibrium partial pressure in the gas phase.

What kind of data is NOT included in the list?

Henry's law refers to small concentrations (lim c-->0). Maximum solubilities are not included. Solubility products, i.e. products of ion concentrations are not included either.

Henry's law constants for solvents other than water are not included.

Values obtained under high pressures (p >> 1000 hPa) and temperatures (T > 373 K) are not included.

Why are CO and CO2 apparently not included?

You cannot find them in the inorganic section. CO and CO2 are included in the miscellaneous organics subsection (all species containing carbon atoms are in the organic section).

Will this list be published in a refereed journal?

For now I have decided to have the list only on the web. I consider this as a "public reviewing process". Since I put the list on the web, I have been told about several additional references and some minor errors have been pointed out to me. Eventually, however, I will submit it to a refereed journal (probably Atmos. Chem. Phys.).

When is the next version of this list available?

At my current rate of productivity, you can expect a new version roughly every two years. Currently version 3 of the list is available. Work continues. I still have several articles that I want to include in the list. If you would like to be informed when version 4 is available, please send an email to sander@mpch-mainz.mpg.de.

How should I cite this work?

If you would like to cite this work, please cite it as:

R. Sander (1999)
Compilation of Henry's Law Constants for Inorganic and Organic Species of Potential Importance in Environmental Chemistry (Version 3)
http://www.henrys-law.org

How do I convert between different units?

NEW: This is explained here.

Can you help me? I've got a question!

You're welcome to send me an email but please don't be too disappointed in case I don't have the time to answer it. Collecting Henry's law constants is not my main job. It's just something I did because I needed (and still need) them for my research. I have received much more email than I expected and I won't be able to answer all questions individually. Before sending me an email, please consider the following points:

Converting between different definitions and units for Henry's law constants can be quite tricky. I'm afraid I won't have the time to answer individual questions on how to convert from unit xxx to unit yyy.

Henry's law constants are used in several research areas, e.g. pesticide control, waste water management, and atmospheric chemistry. Since I'm an atmospheric chemist myself, I don't think I will be able to help you with problems in the other research areas.

5) Errata

Well, I knew it would happen... A big list like this just couldn't be perfect. I have now added a list of errors that I have made in my compilation.

Errata for version 3 (17 Feb 99)

6) Bug reports and comments

If you find errors in the list or if you know of additional references that I could include, please send me an email at sander@mpch-mainz.mpg.de. Especially when you have published measurements of Henry's law's constants, I would appreciate it very much if you send me a reprint! If you have any other comments or questions, please read the 'frequently asked questions' first (see above)!!!

7) Other Sources of Information

IUPAC has published the book Chemicals in the Atmosphere: Solubility, Sources and Reactivity by Peter Fogg and James Sangster. It contains a large compilation of Henry's law constants. However, please take a look at the errata page before using their data.

8) Other Related Chemistry Data sets on the Internet


Rolf Sander This document was last changed 29 Sep 2009