The isotopic and elemental systematics of boron in aragonitic coral skeletons have recently been developed as a proxy for the carbonate chemistry of the coral extracellular calcifying fluid. With knowledge of the boron isotopic fractionation in seawater and the B / Ca partition coefficient (KD) between aragonite and seawater, measurements of coral skeleton δ11B and B / Ca can potentially constrain the full carbonate system. Two sets of abiogenic aragonite precipitation experiments designed to quantify KD have recently made possible the application of this proxy system. However, while different KD formulations have been proposed, there has not yet been a comprehensive analysis that considers both experimental datasets and explores the implications for interpreting coral skeletons. Here, we evaluate four potential KD formulations: three previously presented in the literature and one newly developed. We assess how well each formulation reconstructs the known fluid carbonate chemistry from the abiogenic experiments, and we evaluate the implications for deriving the carbonate chemistry of coral calcifying fluid.