How readily skimmable is ciprofloxacin?

[Miami Reef]

Based on the chemical structure of ciprofloxacin, how readily skimmable do you predict it would be in a saltwater aquarium, @Randy Holmes-Farley ?

Thanks in advance. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The structure of cipro looks to me to be skimmable.

 

[GlassMunky]

The structure of cipro looks to me to be skimmable.

what about the general structure of a chemical would give you info on weather its able to be skimmed or not? I never knew you could tell that just by knowing its structure, thats pretty cool.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

what about the general structure of a chemical would give you info on weather its able to be skimmed or not? I never knew you could tell that just by knowing its structure, thats pretty cool.

Best skimmable chemicals would have a hydrophobic portion that can poke out of the water at an air water interface, and a hydrophilic portion that pokes into the water.

With cipro, either end is hydrophilic and the middle is hydrophobic. That’s not the perfect setup for skimming (one end of each is better) but is good enough.

Some papers do say that cipro is attracted to surfactants at air water interfaces.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsomega.4c04673

 

[PharmrJohn]

Yep. I can see one R-group as lipophilic and one as hydrophilic right off the bat.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

With the exception of the double bond oxygen at the bottom (a ketone) the whole two ring system plus the cyclopropane at the top is pretty hydrophobic.

The nitrogen’s on the left can be protonated to carry a positive charge (depends on pH, but it is sold protonated) and the carboxylic acid on the far right will be negatively charged.