The determination of phenol and kinetic studies on the monobromination of phenol by a pulse coulometric technique

A method for the coulometric determination of phenol is described in which constant current pulses are used to electrogenerate bromine and a current recorder is used to follow the bromination reaction of phenol. Solutions containing 10^-4 to 7.10^-6M phenol are determined with a precision of 1 %. A general method for determining the kinetics of bromination reactions is postulated and used for the determination of the rate constant of the monobromination of phenol. The rate constant for the reaction in which the reacting species are the neutral phenol molecule and the bromine molecule, was found to be 1.6.10⁵1/mole sec.