Water as a nonpolar partition medium.

Coacervates have been suggested as models for cytoplasm since cytoplasm is also essentially an aqueous phase of water-protein-colloid complexes. This study on partition coefficient properties made use of coacervate phases as the nonpolar phases in equilibrium with polar water phases. The partition coefficients of four barbiturates were obtained, and their values correlated with those reported in the literature for systems using organic solvents as the nonpolar medium.