A concept of an electron transfer stopped-flow method

A new concept of an electron transfer stopped-flow (ETSF) method is proposed. In the ETSF method, unstable cation radicals are formed via the electron transfer reactions with stable cation radicals whose oxidation potential is positive to that of unstable ones. Thus, by combining the electron transfer reactions with the stopped-flow operation, absorption spectroscopic measurements for short-lived cation radical become possible with a reduced dead time from the point of the generation of cation radicals to the point of the optical measurement, in particular, with a help of a rapid-scan spectrophotometer. By mixing an acetonitrile (AN) solution of tris(p-bromophenyl)amine cation radical (TBPA^⋅+) with an AN solution of methyldiphenylamine (MDPA) or diphenylamine (HDPA), the kinetic analyses could be carried out successfully for the dimerization reactions of MDPA^⋅+ and HDPA^⋅+ as well as the observations of their absorption spectra. It was found that fast reactions whose second order rate constants are around 10⁷ M⁻¹s⁻¹ can be analyzed using the ETSF method.