Each year, chemists discover new natural products that are released by plants, fungi, bacteria, and other organisms into soils.  It is standard practice to develop an independent chemical synthesis.  Once sufficient quantities are available, each natural product is screened for therapeutic potential, e.g. as an antibiotic or cancer therapy drug.  Agronomic plot experiments are sometimes performed to see if the natural product has beneficial or undesirable effects on target organisms.  Only rarely are key physical and chemical properties appraised, i.e. pK<sub>a</sub>, octanol-water partition coefficient, ability to coordinate dissolved metal ions, nucleophilicity, and electrophilicity.  As a consequence, for all but a handful of natural products, it is not yet possible to evaluate their chemistry in a quantitative way within the context of soils.  Here, we address the ability of natural products to adsorb at mineral/water interfaces.  Adsorption lowers bioavailability and can impart susceptibility towards chemical breakdown by oxidation, reduction, or hydrolysis.  Structures of insecticides, herbicides, and other important classes of agricultural chemicals are often inspired by those of bioactive natural products.  Regulatory agencies require reporting of key physical and chemical properties, but available information often falls short of what would be needed to quantitatively evaluate, indeed predict, chemical behavior as a function of ambient soil conditions.<br/>

Adsorption and reaction at mineral/water interfaces:  Relevance to natural products and agricultural chemicals

249th National Meeting (2015)

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