Experimental techniques, electron transfer

The field of modified electrodes spans a wide area of novel and promising research. The work dted in this article covers fundamental experimental aspects of electrochemistry such as the rate of electron transfer reactions and charge propagation within threedimensional arrays of redox centers and the distances over which electrons can be transferred in outer sphere redox reactions. Questions of polymer chemistry such as the study of permeability of membranes and the diffusion of ions and neutrals in solvent swollen polymers are accessible by new experimental techniques. There is hope of new solutions of macroscopic as well as microscopic electrochemical phenomena the selective and kinetically facile production of substances at square meters of modified electrodes and the detection of trace levels of substances in wastes or in biological material. Technical applications of electronic devices based on molecular chemistry, even those that mimic biological systems of impulse transmission appear feasible and the construction of organic polymer batteries and color displays is close to industrial use. 

Proton Transfer and Electron Transfer Equilibria. The experimental determination used for the data discussed in the above subsections of Section IV.B were obtained from ion-molecule association (clustering) equilibria, for example equation 9. A vast amount of thermochemical data such as gas-phase acidities and basicities have been obtained by conventional gas-phase techniques from proton transfer equilibria,3,7-12-87d 87g while electron affinities88 and ionization energies89 have been obtained from electron transfer equilibria. 

In the following sections the effect of pressure on different types of electron-transfer processes is discussed systematically. Some of our work in this area was reviewed as part of a special symposium devoted to the complementarity of various experimental techniques in the study of electron-transfer reactions (124). Swaddle and Tregloan recently reviewed electrode reactions of metal complexes in solution at high pressure (125). The main emphasis in this section is on some of the most recent work that we have been involved in, dealing with long-distance electron-transfer processes involving cytochrome c. However, by way of introduction, a short discussion on the effect of pressure on self-exchange (symmetrical) and nonsymmetrical electron-transfer reactions between transition metal complexes that have been reported in the literature, is presented. 

The systems that we investigated in collaboration with others involved intermolecular and intramolecular electron-transfer reactions between ruthenium complexes and cytochrome c. We also studied a series of intermolecular reactions between chelated cobalt complexes and cytochrome c. A variety of high-pressure experimental techniques, including stopped-flow, flash-photolysis, pulse-radiolysis, and voltammetry, were employed in these investigations. As the following presentation shows, a remarkably good agreement was found between the volume data obtained with the aid of these different techniques, which clearly demonstrates the complementarity of these methods for the study of electron-transfer processes. 

The discussion above provides the necessary elements to answer the question posed in the heading. If the intermediate does not exist (i.e., its lifetime is shorter than one vibration), the concerted mechanism is necessarily followed. Conversely, however, if the intermediate exists, the reaction pathway does not necessarily go through it, depending on the molecular structure and the driving force. Dichotomy and competition between the two mechanisms is a general problem of chemical reactivity. The example of electron transfer/bond reactions has allowed a detailed analysis of the problem, thanks to the use of electrochemical techniques on the experimental side and of semiempirical models on the theoretical side. 

Apart from the above techniques, the electromodulated reflectance spectroscopy combined with cyclic voltammetry has been utilized by Gaigalas et al. [14] in the investigations of electron transfer between the 2Fe-2S protein putidaredoxin and either bare or bekanamycin-modified Ag electrode. Of the two models considered, the free diffusion model, as compared to the adsorbed layer model, exhibited better concordance with the experimental data. After modification of the Ag electrode with bekanamycin, it exhibited only a small increase in the observed redox reaction... 

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