Alkyl Range Descriptors

There are four major approaches to characterizing alkyl groups for the purposes of reporting for the TSCA Inventory natural source descriptions. Soap and Detergent Manufacturers Association (SDA) descriptors, alkyl-range descriptors, alkyl-range descriptions that are not SDA descriptions, and conventional, specific chemical names. One or more of these approaches or a combination of these approaches may be appropriate depending upon the specific situation. 

Non-SDA, alkyl-range descriptors may generally be used to describe the substances listed below. 

A combination of chemical substances that contains all of the carbon numbers in the alkyl-range descriptor. For example, a distillation cut of C5, Cg, C7, and Cg alcohols could be described as Cg g alcohols. 

A combination of chemical substances that do not span the entire range of the alkyl descriptor. For example, an alcohol stream containing C12, C14, Cjg, and Cjg alcohols should not be described as Ci2 i4 alcohols, Ci4 ig alcohols, or Ci4 ig alcohols. ... 

A combination of chemical substances that contain alkyl groups outside the carbon range of the descriptor when those alkyl groups are present in significant quantities (e.g., greater than about 1.5-2.0%) and contribute commercial value to the product. 

The structures were quite diverse, ranging from those with simple alkyl ether attachments, to complex cyclized derivatives. The entire set could not be modeled and analyzed, so to obtain a representative sampling of the compounds, several molecular connectivity descriptors (12) were computed using the ADAPT program... 

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