Unstable Electrode Products

Kihara et al. employed flow coulometry to study the electrode reactions for Np ions in various acidic media [49]. Flow coulometry has an inherent advantage over the conventional hulk coulometry methods in that the electrolysis can be achieved rapidly to aid in the characterization of unstable electrode products. The resulting coulopo-tentiograms for the Np02 /Np02 and Np /Np " " couples indicate reversible processes in nitric, perchloric, and sulfuric acids. The differences in potentials between the various acids are attributed to the associated stability constants of the electrode products with the anion of the acid in each case. Table 2 contains the half-wave potentials for each couple in the various acids. 

Evaluation of Formal Potentials 12.3.3.2. Involving Unstable Electrode Products. 

Chlorobenzonitrile and adrenaline, our second example, both give electrode products that are unstable with respect to subsequent chemical reaction. Because the products of these homogeneous chemical reactions are also electroactive in the potential range of interest, the overall electrode reaction is referred to as an ECE process that is, a chemical reaction is interposed between electron transfer reactions. Adrenaline differs from/ -chlorobenzonitrile in that (1) the product of the chemical reactions, leucoadrenochrome, is more readily oxidized than the parent species, and (2) the overall rate of the chemical reactions is sufficiently slow so as to permit kinetic studies by electrochemical methods. As a final note before the experimental results are presented, the enzymic oxidation of adrenaline was known to give adrenochrome. Accordingly, the emphasis in the work described by Adams and co-workers [2] was on the preparation and study of the intermediates. 

When dehydration occurs as a consecutive reaction, its effect on polarographic curves can be observed only, if the electrode process is reversible. In such cases, the consecutive reaction affects neither the wave-height nor the wave-shape, but causes a shift in the half-wave potentials. Such systems, apart from the oxidation of -aminophenol mentioned above, probably play a role in the oxidation of enediols, e.g. of ascorbic acid. It is assumed that the oxidation of ascorbic acid gives in a reversible step an unstable electroactive product, which is then transformed to electroinactive dehydroascorbic acid in a fast chemical reaction. Theoretical treatment predicted a dependence of the half-wave potential on drop-time, and this was confirmed, but the rate constant of the deactivation reaction cannot be determined from the shift of the half-wave potential, because the value of the true standard potential (at t — 0) is not accessible to measurement. 

Both the ring-disk and thin-layer electrodes provide a convenient means for observing unstable intermediate products from electrochemical reactions. Quantitative evaluations of the lifetimes of these intermediates and of the products from such intermediates are readily evaluated by each of these methods.52 53... 

These results agree well with electrochemical experiments. If dichloromethane solutions of different Msj dusters are contacted to Pt electrodes to which 20 V dc is applied, the duster molecules are degraded as a result of the contact with the electrodes. [109] Polarization effects may be the reason for the decomposition. Electrophoresis is observed without any indication of duster decomposition if the platinum electrodes dip into water layers covering the organic phase in a U-tube. The black, thermodynamically unstable microcrystalline products formed on the Pt surfaces have been identified by X-ray powder diffraction to be novel [(Mi3)J metal modifications. The results from the diffraction experiments indicate a structure consisting of cubic dose packed M13 dusters which are linked via their triangular faces to form a kind of pseudo dose packed structure with M13 dusters as building blocks. 

Furthermore, it is now clear that organometallic compounds may be unstable intermediates in other electrode processes. Thus, the reduction of acetone at a series different metals in aqueous sulphuric acid has been studied (Sekine etal., 1965), and the products of controlled-potential electrolyses are shown in Table 3. The reduction of isopropanol or pinacol... 

Most often, these radicals are unstable and can exist only while adsorbed on the electrode, although in the case of polycyclic aromatic compounds (e.g., the derivatives of anthracene), they are more stable and can exist even in the solution. The radicals formed first can undergo a variety of chemical or electrochemical reactions. This reaction type is the analog of hydrogen evolution, where electron transfer as the first step produces an adsorbed hydrogen atom, which is also a radical-type product. 

The double-pulse potentiostatic method (Fig. 5.18C) is suitable for studying the products or intermediates in electrode reactions, formed in the A pulse by means of the B pulse. For example, if an electroactive substance is reduced in pulse A and if pulse B is sufficiently more positive than pulse A, then the product can be reoxidized. The shape of the I-t curve in pulse B can indicate, for example, the degree to which the unstable product of the electrode reaction is changed in a subsequent chemical reaction. 

Fichter and Kern O first reported that uric acid could be electrochemically oxidized. The reaction was studied at a lead oxide electrode but without control of the anode potential. Under such uncontrolled conditions these workers found that in lithium carbonate solution at 40-60 °C a yield of approximately 70% of allantoin was obtained. In sulfuric acid solution a 63% yield of urea was obtained. A complete material balance was not obtained nor were any mechanistic details developed. In 1962 Smith and Elving 2) reported that uric acid gave a voltammetric oxidation peak at a wax-impregnated spectroscopic graphite electrode. Subsequently, Struck and Elving 3> examined the products of this oxidation and reported that in 1 M HOAc complete electrochemical oxidation required about 2.2 electrons per molecule of uric acid. The products formed were 0.25 mole C02,0.25 mole of allantoin or an allantoin precursor, 0.75 mole of urea, 0.3 mole of parabanic acid and 0.30 mole of alloxan per mole of uric acid oxidized. On the basis of these products a scheme was developed whereby uric acid (I, Fig. 1) is oxidized in a primary 2e process to a shortlived dicarbonium ion (Ha, lib, Fig. 1) which, being unstable, under-... 

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