Electron-transfer processes thermal reaction

We now return to the thermal electron transfer reaction in eq 20, in which the rate-limiting activation process has been shown to proceed from the electron donor acceptor complex (23), i.e.,... 

The mechanistic conundrum presented by such a dichotomy between electron-transfer and electrophilic processes can only be rigorously resolved by the experimental proof of whether the cation radical (or the electrophilic adduct) is, or is not, the vital reactive intermediate. However, in a thermal (adiabatic) reaction between arene donors and the nitrosonium cation, such reactive intermediates cannot be formed in sufficient concentrations to be observed directly by conventional experimental methods since their rates of follow-up reactions must perforce always be faster than their rates of formation, except when they are formed in a reversible equilibrium like the... 

Romanian scientists compared one-electron transfer reactions from triphenylmethyl or 2-methyl benzoyl chloride to nitrobenzene in thermal (210°C) conditions and on ultrasonic stimulation at 50°C (lancu et al. 1992, Vinatoru et al. 1994, Chivu et al. 2006). In the first step, the chloride cation-radical and the nitrobenzene anion-radicals are formed. In the thermal and acoustic variants, the reactions lead to the same set of products with one important exception The thermal reaction results in the formation of HCl, whereas ultrasonic stimulation results in CI2 evolution. At present, it is difficult to elucidate the mechanisms behind these two reactions. As an important conclusion, the sonochemical process goes through the inner-sphere electron transfer. The outer-sphere electron transfer mechanism is operative in the thermally induced process. 

Many spectroscopic methods have been employed for the investigation of such systems For example, wide-band, time-resolved, pulsed photoacoustic spectroscopy was employed to study the electron transfer reaction between a triplet magnesium porphyrin and various quinones in polar and nonpolar solvents. Likewise, ultrafast time-resolved anisotropy experiments with [5-(l,4-benzoquinonyl)-10,15,20-triphenylpor-phyrinato]magnesium 16 showed that the photoinduced electron transfer process involving the locally-excited MgP Q state is solvent-independent, while the thermal charge recombination reaction is solvent-dependent . Recently, several examples of quinone-phtha-locyanine systems have also been reported . 

In view of the lack of a clear understanding of the physical picture of the process, the thermal diffusion model has no predictive power. On its basis, for example, the manner in which the kinetic curves for low-temperature electron transfer reactions should change with changing concentration or kind of spatial distribution of reagents cannot be predicted. By contrast, the model of electron tunneling permits such predictions, and these predictions have been shown above (see, for example, Chap. 6, Sect. 3) to agree with the experiments. 

Fig. 8. Outline of the time-scale of the processes observed during an electron transfer reaction observed through thermal lensing. Processes which occur in times below ca. 0.5 ps are very fast , beyond the temporal resolution of the thermal lensing technique they would appear as a step function in the kinetics of heat release. The slowest processes which would be observed in this case are the second-order recombinations of free ions, which take place in time scales of ps to several ms.

The Marcus theory is the most widely applied theory used to describe electron transfer reactions and is equally applicable to photoinduced, interfacial and thermally driven electron transfers. The fundamental difference between these processes lies primarily in the nature of the driving force. In the case of heterogeneous electron... 

Electron transfer reactions and spectroscopic charge-transfer transitions have been extensively studied, and it has been shown that both processes can be described with a similar theoretical formalism. The activation energy of the thermal process and the transition energy of the optical process are each determined by two factors one due to the difference in electron affinity of the donor and acceptor sites, and the other arising from the fact that the electronically excited state is a nonequilibrium state with respect to atomic motion (P ranck Condon principle). Theories of electron transfer have been concerned with predicting the magnitude of the Franck-Condon barrier but, in the field of thermal electron transfer kinetics, direct comparisons between theory and experimental data have been possible only to a limited extent. One difficulty is that in kinetic studies it is generally difficult to separate the electron transfer process from the complex formation... 

The space-time density fluctuations in polar liquid and their coupling widi a variety of chemical processes have attracted much attention in recent years. The photo-induced electric excitation of a solute and the thermal electron transfer reaction are among most well studied examples in such chemical processes. In this brief note, we report our recent effort to build theoretical tools for investigating such phenomena based on the integral equation method in die statistical mechanics of liquids. ... 

This chapter is intended to focus on catalysis in both thermal and photoinduced electron transfer reactions between electron donors and acceptors by investigating the effects of an appropriate substance that can reduce the activation barrier of electron transfer reactions. It is commonly believed that a catalyst affects the rate of reaction but not the point of equilibrium of the reaction. Thus, a substance is said to act as a catalyst in a reaction when it appears in the rate equation but not in the stoichiometric equation. However, autocatalysis involves a product acting as a catalyst. In this chapter, a catalyst is simply defined as a substance which affects the rate of reaction. This is an unambiguous classification, albeit not universally accepted, including a variety of terms such as catalyzed, sensitized, promoted, accelerated, enhanced, stimulated, induced, and assisted. Both thermal and photochemical redox reactions which would otherwise be unlikely to occur are made possible to proceed efficiently by the catalysis in the electron transfer steps. First, factors that accelerate rates of electron transfer are summarized and then each mechanistic viability is described by showing a number of examples of both thermal and photochemical reactions that involve catalyzed electron transfer processes as the rate-determining steps. Catalytic reactions which involve uncatalyzed electron transfer steps are described in other chapters in this section [66-68]. 

Many radicals are produced by homolytic cleavage of bonds. The energy for this kind of bond breaking comes from thermal or photochemical energy or from electron-transfer reactions effected by either inorganic compounds or electrochemistry. These kinds of processes initiate reactions that proceed by a radical mechanism. Compounds that readily produce radicals are called initiators or free radical initiators. 

The free energy curves allow one to discuss the energetics involved in the two types of charge transfer processes. For thermal electron transfer reactions, the... 

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