Dr. David Stanbury, Department of Chemistry, Auburn University, is supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Program of the Chemistry Division for research into main-group electron-transfer reactions. The kinetics and mechanisms of selected chemical reactions will be probed in a series of redox reactions of simple main-group molecules in aqueous solution. The reactions have been designed so that the rate limiting step is outer sphere electron-transfer. The systems include halogen, hypochloride, nitric oxide, and ozone reduction, plus thiol, thiocyanate, and bromite oxidation, which have been selected because they can contribute broadly to the understanding of the electron-transfer process. As several of the reactions appear to violate the prediction that there is a simple correlation between the reaction rates and the energy required to distort the molecules to a compromise geometry between the oxidized and reduced structures, Marcus Theory will be tested.
Electron-transfer is one of the most basic reactions and is of importance in many areas of chemistry. This investigation will center on systems that are involved in chemical processes occurring in the environment and in biological systems. The details of how electrons are transferred to or from a molecule will be determined. This is of significance because several of the processes of interest to this project do not appear to follow predicted behavior or are ones that are unstudied. In order to understand the role of these compounds in the environment or biological systems, their fundamental behavior must be understood.
