Activators peroxyoxalates

Peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence is the most efficient nonenzymatic chemiluminescent reaction known. Quantum efficiencies as high as 22—27% have been reported for oxalate esters prepared from 2,4,6-trichlorophenol, 2,4-dinitrophenol, and 3-trif1uoromethy1-4-nitropheno1 (6,76,77) with the duorescers mbrene [517-51-1] (78,79) or 5,12-bis(phenylethynyl)naphthacene [18826-29-4] (79). For most reactions, however, a quantum efficiency of 4% or less is more common with many in the range of lO " to 10 ein/mol (80). The inefficiency in the chemiexcitation process undoubtedly arises from the transfer of energy of the activated peroxyoxalate to the duorescer. The inefficiency in the CIEEL sequence derives from multiple side reactions available to the reactive intermediates in competition with the excited state producing back-electron transfer process. 

It must be pointed out that, despite the lack of direct experimental support for this hypothesis, the involvement of the electron transfer in luminol chemiexcitation is related to the chemiexcitation steps proposed for several highly efficient chemi- and biolu-minescent systems, such as activated peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence and the firefly luciferin/luciferase system (Section... 

Peroxyoxalate. The chemical activation of a fluorescer by the reactions of hydrogen peroxide, a catalyst, and an oxalate ester has been the object of several mechanism studies. It was first proposed in 1967 that peroxyoxalate (26) was converted to dioxetanedione (27), a highly unstable intermediate which served as the chemical activator of the fluorescer (fir) (6,9). 

Rate law and activation energy. The oxidation of nitrosobenzene by terf-butyl hydroperoxide is catalyzed by di-terf-butyl peroxyoxalate (TBO) and by a cobalt(II) chelate complex. 

Though we and others (27-29) have demonstrated the utility and the improved sensitivity of the peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence method for analyte detection in RP-HPLC separations for appropriate substrates, a substantial area for Improvement and refinement of the technique remains. We have shown that the reactions of hydrogen peroxide and oxalate esters yield a very complex array of reactive intermediates, some of which activate the fluorophor to its fluorescent state. The mechanism for the ester reaction as well as the process for conversion of the chemical potential energy into electronic (excited state) energy remain to be detailed. Finally, the refinement of the technique for routine application of this sensitive method, including the optimization of the effi-ciencies for each of the contributing factors, is currently a major effort in the Center for Bioanalytical Research. 

Mansouri A, Makris DP and Kefalas P. 2005. Determination of hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity of cinnamic and benzoic acids employing a highly sensitive peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence-based assay structure-activity relationships. J Pharm Biomed Anal 39(l-2) 22-26. 

The brilliant emissions resulting from the oxidation of certain oxalic acid derivatives, especially in the presence of a variety of fluorophores, are the bases of the most active area of current interest in CL. This group of chemiluminescent reactions has been classified as peroxyoxalate chemistry because it derives from the excited states formed by the decomposition of cyclic peroxides of oxalic acid derivatives called dioxetanes, dioxetanones, and dioxetanediones. 

In the second case, the HEI is formed in one or several reaction steps which are rate-limiting and the interaction of the ACT with this intermediate occurs in a rapid, kineticaUy unobservable, reaction step. Therefore, kinetic data cannot provide evidence of the occurrence of this interaction (Scheme 5). The classical example of this type of activated CL is the peroxyoxalate reaction , for which an electron transfer between a HEI and the ACT has already been postulated by Rauhut (see Section VI.C). In an elegant experiment, Lechtken and Turro confirmed the occurrence of an activated CL process in this reaction, using energy acceptors with different singlet excitation energies (Eg)... 

We have recently described a calibration procedure for the determination of excitation quantum yields on commercial fluorimeters, utilizing the luminol standard , and have thereby determined singlet excitation quantum yields for the peroxyoxalate reaction with bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl) oxalate (TCPO), hydrogen peroxide and imidazole, using various activators . The same calibration method has been utilized to determine the singlet quantum yields obtained in the induced decomposition of protected phenoxyl-substituted 1,2-dioxetanes 6 and and compared them to the well-investigated... 

Intensive studies in the field of mechanistic CL by several research groups have resulted in the description of a large variety of peroxides which, in the presence of appropriate activators, show decomposition in an activated CL process and might involve the CIEEL mechanism . Even before the formulation of the CIEEL mechanism, Rauhut s research group obtained evidence of the involvement of electron-transfer processes in the excitation step of the peroxyoxalate CL. Results obtained in the activated CL of diphe-noyl peroxide (4) led to the formulation of this chemiexcitation mechanism , and several 1,2-dioxetanones (a-peroxylactones), such as 3,3-dimethyl-l,2-dioxetanone (9) and the first a-peroxylactone synthesized, 3-ierr-butyl-l,2-dioxetanone (14), have been shown to possess similar CL properties, compatible with the CIEEL mechanism Furthermore, the CL properties of secondary peroxyesters, such as 1-phenethylperoxy acetate (15) , peroxylates (16) , o-xylylene peroxide (17) , malonyl peroxides... 

In this part of the chapter, we will focus essentially on mechanistic aspects of the peroxyoxalate reaction. For the discussion of the most important advances in mechanistic aspects of this chemiluminescent system, covering mainly literature reports published in the last two decades, we will divide the sequence operationally into three main parts (i) the kinetics of chemical reactions that take place before chemiexcitation, which ultimately produce the high-energy intermediate (HEI) (ii) the efforts to elucidate the structure of the proposed HEIs, either attempting to trap and synthesize them, or by indirect spectroscopic studies and lastly, (iii) the mechanism involved in chemiexcitation, whereby the interaction of the HEI with the activator leads to the formation of the electronically excited state of the latter, followed by fluorescence emission and decay to the ground state. 

Stevani and coworkers prepared and characterized a peracid intermediate, 4-chloro-pheny 1-0,0-hydrogen monoperoxalate (57) and found that no chemiluminescence was observed in the presence of activators (i.e. rubrene, perylene and DPA) and the absence of a base. Based on this result, the authors excluded 57 and similar peracid derivatives as HEI in the peroxyoxalate system. Moreover, 57 only emits light in the presence of an activator and a base with pK > 6, suggesting that a slow chemical transformation must still occur prior to the chemiexcitation step. Kinetic experiments with 57, using mainly imidazole, but also in the presence of other bases such as potassium 4-chlorophenolate, f-butoxide and l,8-bis(dimethylamino)naphthalene , showed that imidazole can act competitively as base and nucleophilic catalyst (Scheme 41). At low imidazole concentrations, base catalysis is the main pathway (steps 1 and 2) however, increasing the base concentration causes nucleophilic attack of imidazole catalyzed by imidazole to become the main pathway (steps la and 2a). Contrary to the proposal of Hohman and coworkers , the... 

Rauhut and coworkers proposed the occurrence of a charge transfer complex between the HEI and the ACT in order to explain the electronically excited-state generation in the peroxyoxalate system. Chemiluminescence quantum yield (4>cl) measurements with different activators have shown that the lower the ACT half-wave oxidation potential (Ei/2° ) or singlet energy (Es), the higher the electronically excited-state formation rate and 4>cl- According to the mechanistic proposal of Schuster and coworkers for the CIEEL... 

The peroxyoxalate system is the only intermolecular chemiluminescent reaction presumably involving the (71EEL sequence (Scheme 44), which shows high singlet excitation yields (4>s), as confirmed independently by several authors Moreover, Stevani and coworkers reported a correlation between the singlet quantum yields, extrapolated to infinite activator concentrations (4> ), and the free energy involved in back electron-transfer (AG bet), as well as between the catalytic electron-transfer/deactivation rate constants ratio, ln( cAx( i3), and E j2° (see Section V). A linear correlation of ln( cAx( i3) and E /2° was obtained for the peroxyoxalate reaction with TCPO and H2O2 catalyzed by imidazole and for the imidazole-catalyzed reaction of 57, both in the presence of five activators commonly used in CIEEL studies (anthracene, DPA, PPO, perylene and rubrene). A further confirmation of the validity of the CIEEL mechanism in the excitation step of... 

Hexanal, hpid oxidation assessment, 669 1-Hexene, primary ozonide, 720 High-density lipoprotein (HDL) oxidation, 612 TEARS assay, 667 High-energy intermediate (HEI) chemiluminescence, 1215 activators, 1220, 1222 peroxyoxalates, 1188-9, 1257, 1261-6, 1267, 1269 stmcture, 1262, 1263... 

An indirect method has been used to determine relative rate constants for the excitation step in peroxyoxalate CL from the imidazole (IM-H)-catalyzed reaction of bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl) oxalate (TCPO) with hydrogen peroxide in the presence of various ACTs18. In this case, the HEI is formed in slow reaction steps and its interaction with the ACT is not observed kinetically. However, application of the steady-state approximation to the reduced kinetic scheme for this transformation (Scheme 6) leads to a linear relationship of 1/S vs. 1/[ACT] (equation 5) and to the ratio of the chemiluminescence parameters /ic vrAi), which is a direct measure of the rate constant of the excitation step. Therefore, this method allows for the determination of relative rate constants for the excitation step in a complex reaction system, where this step cannot be observed directly by kinetic measurements18. The singlet quantum yield at infinite activator concentrations ( °), where all high-energy intermediates formed interact with the activator, is also obtained from this relationship (equation 5). 

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