Influence of solvent on kinetics of reactions of Cr(II) ions

This paper deals with the study of redox reactions of Cr(II) ions with hydroxylamine, hydrazoic acid, maleic acid, di- and trichloroacetic acids in so-called typically aqueous mixtures of water with methyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol, or tert-butyl alcohol. The kinetics of the redox reaction with dichloroacetic acid was studied also in the medium of aqueous acetone and in a typically nonaqueous medium water-acetonitrile. The dependences of activation Gibbs energies on the mole fraction of the nonaqueous component have no minima and maxima characteristic for the thermodynamic behaviour of the mentioned binary systems. However, the change of the activation Gibbs energy with the mole fraction of tert-butyl alcohol is not monotonous with all the studied reactions of Cr(II) ions. At a constant mole fraction of the nonaqueous component, the usual trend of the influence on the rate constants decreases in the sequence tert-butyl alcohol > isopropyl alcohol > methyl alcohol. Tert-butyl alcohol hinders most strongly the redox reaction with trichloroacetic acid, whereas it accelerates the reaction of Cr(II) ions with maleic acid and hydroxylamine.