The main objective of this work was to propose a model able to predict the partition coefficient of odorous or toxic gaseous pollutants (dimethylsulphide, dimethyldisulphide and toluene) in water/silicone oil mixtures. Experimental measurements using a static headspace method were carried out for pure water (H-voc,H-water), for pure silicone oil (H-voc,H-solvent) and for mixtures of varying composition (H-voc,H-mixture). The dramatic decrease in the partition coefficient (H-voc,H-mixture) with oil addition clearly showed a deviation from linearity, which was more pronounced for increasing H-voc,H-water/H-voc,H-solvent ratios. Moreover, experiments using a dynamic absorption method underlined that the absorption capacity of a biphasic water/silicone oil mixture can be classed as the absorption capacity of a pseudo-homogeneous phase whose physical properties (molecular weight and density) can be calculated from the physical properties of water and solvent, and balanced using the "equivalent absorption coefficients" H-voc,H-mixture/H-voc,H-water and H-voc,H-mixture/H-voc,H-solvent. An "equivalent absorption capacity" concept is then proposed, which should be useful to design absorption units using two-phase liquid mixtures for the treatment of industrial air loaded with volatile organic compounds. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.