Blood:air partition coefficients of individual and mixtures of trihalomethanes.

The objective of the present study was to determine the rat blood:air partition coefficients (P(b:a)) of chloroform, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane and bromoform present in vitro individually or as mixtures. The experimentally determined P(b:a) of chloroform, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane and bromoform present individually corresponded to (mean +/- SD, n = 8) 21.3 +/- 1.8, 41.8 +/- 6.2, 97.5 +/- 4.1, and 187 +/- 7.4, respectively. The P(b:a) of these trihalomethanes (THMs) showed a decreasing trend during mixed in vitro exposures to 0.138 +/- 0.002 or 0.273 +/- 0.002 micromol of each of the four THMs. In general, the P(b:a) determined during mixed exposures differed by < or = 15% of the average P(b:a) determined for THMs present individually. The results of this study suggest that an alteration of P(b:a) of the individual THMs is unlikely to occur at the blood concentrations of THMs observed during mixed exposures in rats.