Study on the activity coefficients and solubilities of amino acids in aqueous solutions with perturbed-chain statistical associating fluid theory

Perturbed-chain statistical associating fluid theory (PC-SAFT) was applied for modeling the thermodynamic properties of aqueous amino acid solutions. To account for the association phenomena of amino acids occurring in the aqueous solution, the zwitterionic forms of amino acids are assumed to be associating species with proton donor and acceptor sites. Also, in order to reduce the number of adjustable parameters of PC-SAFT equation of state (EoS) for amino acids from five to three, it is assumed that segment numbers of amino acids are linearly related with the molecular weight of amino acids, and the association volume parameters of amino acids can be set to a fixed value. Thus, 3-parameters of PC-SAFT EoS for amino acids were estimated by simultaneously fitting the activity coefficients of amino acid and densities data in the aqueous amino acid solutions. The PC-SAFT EoS with estimated 3-parameters of amino acid is found to well describe activity coefficients of amino acid and densities of the aqueous amino acid solutions. Also, this equation was used for predicting solubilities of amino acids as well as the water activities and osmotic coefficients in the aqueous amino acid solutions. The predicted values of these properties are in good agreement with the experimental data.