Rapid Cleavage Reactions of Haloaromatic Radical Anions Measured with Fast-Scan Cyclic Voltammetry

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/j100347a074

Cyclic voltammetry at scan rates from 10 mV/s to 1E6 V/s has been used to characterize the reduction of aryl and benzyl halides in acetonitrile solutions containing 0.6 M tetraethylammonium perchlorate.The use of very rapid scan rates is made possible with electrodes of micrometer dimensions.The kinetics and mechanism of the reduction process have been evaluated by digital simulation of the recorded voltammograms.The radical anion generated at the electrode surface is found to have a half-life ranging from less than 100 ns in the case of 4'-bromoacetophenone to 70 ms for the case of m-nitrobenzyl chloride.The reduction mechanism for the aryl halides is consistent with the ECE-DISP1 mechanism.Thus following initial one-electron reduction, halogen bond cleavage occurs resulting in a radical that is subsequently reduced.For the compounds with relatively long half-lives (>1ms) the results in thus work are in good agreement with prior investigations with cyclic voltammetry.Good agreement is also obtained with compounds that have a short half-life ( ca. 1 μs) which have been characterized by the technique of redox catalysis.However, the measured rate constants differ with previously reported values which were estimated or measured at the extreme time limits of classical electrochemical techniques.