Surface-area-to-volume ratio Surface-area-to-volume ratio The surface-area-to-volume ratio, also called the surface-to-volume ratio and variously denoted sa/vol or SA:V, is the amount of surface area per unit volume of an object or collection of objects. In chemical reactions involving a solid material, the surface area to volume ratio is an important factor for the reactivity, that is, the rate at which the chemical reaction will proceed. For a given volume, the object with the smallest surface area (and therefore with the smallest SA:V) is the sphere, a consequence of the isoperimetric inequality in 3 dimensions. By contrast, objects with tiny spikes will have
Polar surface area usually needed. Polar surface area The polar surface area (PSA) or topological polar surface area (TPSA) of a molecule is defined as the surface sum over all polar atoms, primarily oxygen and nitrogen, also including their attached hydrogen atoms. PSA is a commonly used medicinal chemistry metric for the optimization of a drug's ability to permeate cells. Molecules with a polar surface area of greater than 140 angstroms squared tend to be poor at permeating cell membranes. For molecules to penetrate the blood–brain barrier (and thus act on receptors in the central nervous system), a PSA less than 90 angstroms