Determination of acidity constants of pyridines, imidazoles, and oximes by capillary electrophoresis

The acidity constant in the form of pK_a is one of the most important physicochemical quantities. There are prediction tools available for calculating the pK_a , but they only deliver precise calculated values for a relatively small set of chemicals. For complex structures with multiple functional groups in particular, the error in the predicted pK_a is high due to the application domain of the corresponding models. Thus, we aim to enlarge the dataset of experimentally determined pK_a values using capillary electrophoresis. We, therefore, selected various pyridines, imidazoles, and oximes to determine the pK_a values using the internal standard approach and the classical method. Especially oximes were not investigated in the past, and predictions for them include larger errors. Thus, our experimentally determined values could contribute to an improved understanding of various functional groups impacting the pK_a values and serve as additional datasets to develop improved pK_a prediction tools.