Autocatalytic oxidation of Fe(Phen)3 2+ by bromate in water-in-oil reverse micelles of AOT

Autocatalytic oxidation of ferroin by bromate in water-in-oil reverse micelles of AOT has been studied experimentally and theoretically. The simplest models for this process have been constructed. Analytical solutions for these models were found for some limiting cases. It has been shown that the autocatalytic reaction runs much more slowly in reverse micelles than in water. The dependencies of the maximum reaction rate,_max, the exponent of the increase in ferriin concentration, , and induction period, , on micelle concentration have been obtained at =[H₂O]/[AOT]=4.6. It was found that there is only one theoretical model which can explain the experimental data. The values of the elementary reaction rate constantsk_i were estimated on the basis of the theoretical dependencies of_max and on the constantsk_i. All elementary rate constants turned out to be two or three orders of magnitude smaller than the corresponding constants for the reaction proceeding in water. The decrease in the rate constants is explained by the increase in viscosity and pH in a micellar water core at low .Translated fromIzvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 8, pp. 1401–1407, August, 1993.This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Fundamental Investigations through Research Grant 93-03-4090.