Electron transfer solvent reorganization

In typical outer sphere electron transfer on metal electrodes, A is in the weakly adiabatic region and thus sufficiently large to ensure adiabaticity, but too small to lead to a noticeable reduction of the activation energy. In this case, the rate is determined by solvent reorganization, and is independent of the nature of the metal [Iwasita et al., 1985 Santos et al., 1986]. 

As demonstrated in Section 2.2, the energy of activation of simple electron transfer reactions is determined by the energy of reorganization of the solvent, which is typically about 0.5-1 eV. Thus, these reactions are typically much faster than bondbreaking reactions, and do not require catalysis by a J-band. However, before considering the catalysis of bond breaking in detail, it is instructive to apply the ideas of the preceding section to simple electron transfer, and see what effects the abandomnent of the wide band approximation has. 

The solvent reorganization term reflects the changes in solvent polarization during electron transfer. The polarization of the solvent molecule can be divided into two components (1) the electron redistribution of the solvent molecules and (2) the solvent nuclear reorientation. The latter corresponds to a slow and rate-determining step involving the dipole moments of the solvent molecules that... 

In this section, we switch gears slightly to address another contemporary topic, solvation dynamics coupled into the ESPT reaction. One relevant, important issue of current interest is the ESPT coupled excited-state charge transfer (ESCT) reaction. Seminal theoretical approaches applied by Hynes and coworkers revealed the key features, with descriptions of dynamics and electronic structures of non-adiabatic [119, 120] and adiabatic [121-123] proton transfer reactions. The most recent theoretical advancement has incorporated both solvent reorganization and proton tunneling and made the framework similar to electron transfer reaction, [119-126] such that the proton transfer rate kpt can be categorized into two regimes (a) For nonadiabatic limit [120] ... 

As with the Marcus-Hush model of outer-sphere electron transfers, the activation free energy, AG, is a quadratic function of the free energy of the reaction, AG°, as depicted by equation (7), where the intrinsic barrier free energy (equation 8) is the sum of two contributions. One involves the solvent reorganization free energy, 2q, as in the Marcus-Hush model of outer-sphere electron transfer. The other, which represents the contribution of bond breaking, is one-fourth of the bond dissociation energy (BDE). This approach is... 

Carbonyl compounds are also suited to the investigation of the role of solvent reorganization in the dynamics of intramolecular dissociative electron transfer as observed in a series of phenacyl derivatives bearing various leaving groups.199... 

In the framework of the Landau-Zener model, P is related to H by means of equation (75). These equations are also valid when both the stretching and solvent reorganization coordinates are taken into account as in the case of dissociative electron transfer. 

Two types of electron transfer mechanisms are defined for transition metal species. Outer-sphere electron transfer occurs when the outer, or solvent, coordination spheres of the metal centers is involved in transferring electrons. No reorganization of the inner coordination sphere of either reactant takes place during electron transfer. A reaction example is depicted in equation 1.27 ... 

These arguments are similar to those employed in the derivation of the Butler-Volmer equation for electron-transfer reactions in Chapter 5. However, here the reaction coordinate corresponds to the motion of the ion, while for electron transfer it describes the reorganization of the solvent. For ion transfer the Gibbs energy curves are less symmetric, and the transfer coefficient need not be close to 1/2 it may also vary somewhat with temperature since the structure of the solution changes. 

We first consider outer sphere transfer (ET) reactions, e.g. D" + A -> D + A, a donor-acceptor electron transfer without significant coupled internal reorganization of the D and A species [27,29,30]. A hallmark of such reactions, which has been long appreciated [27], is that the reactive coordinate is itself a many-body collective solvent variable (and is not the coordinate of the electron itself)- In particular, if R and P stand for the reactant and product, then the reactive coordinate is... 

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