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Study of Electron Transfer through electrochemical methods
Team: Dr. Dino Villagran & Mark Smith
We propose to study the kinetics and thermodynamics of electron transfer (ET) in the teaching physical chemistry laboratory at UTEP, and develop a laboratory module for the Fall semester which will continue throughout the years.
The concept of electron transfer is one of the most important in chemistry. How one electron transfers from one “redox” center to another. It would extremely beneficial for undergraduate students to have hands on experience on how ET studies have been performed. Also exposures to electrochemical techniques are important in order to study the kinetics and thermodynamics aspect of this topic.
We propose to study the thermodynamics of ET by measuring the equilibrium of the three different possible species in a mixed-valent system. We shall obtain equilibrium constants for the equilibrium composed between the unoxidized and oxidized species obtained through electrochemistry. We can then measure the kinetics of electron transfer (the rate of electron transfer) through derivations of the Arrhenius equation that relates the potential measured through electrochemistry and the rate constant of the ET.
The student will have to perform simple synthesis of coupling two ferrocene molecules through several linkers. Once the student makes these simple diferrocene compounds, he or she will perform the electrochemical measurements and utilize the available literature to measure the electrochemical potentials and reaction rates. The student will then choose which samples are the most appropriate and could be the most informative to his/her undergraduate peers. The student will also measure the rate of electron transfer through hydrogen-bonded dyads and compare these models to the covalently bonded compounds studied earlier.
The student researcher will have to write a manual for the physical chemistry laboratory, including a worksheet for the students. The student researcher will also write two quizzes to be distributed before and after the laboratory practice in order to measure the students understanding of the concepts in the module.
