C. M. McGuire, D. Peters
2016
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0
Influential Citations
7
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Journal
Journal of The Electrochemical Society
Abstract
Cyclic voltammetry and controlled-potential (bulk) electrolysis have been employed to investigate the electrochemical reduction of 4,4′-(2,2,2-trichloroethane-1,1-diyl)bis(methoxybenzene), commonly known as the pesticide methoxychlor, at glassy carbon and silver cathodes in dimethylformamide (DMF) containing 0.050 M tetra-n-butylammonium tetrafluoroborate (TBABF4). Reduction of methoxychlor at both glassy carbon and silver shows four voltammetric peaks, the first three of which are associated with cleavage of carbon–chlorine bonds; the fourth peak is assigned to reduction of 4,4′-(ethene-1,1-diyl)bis(methoxybenzene). Bulk electrolyses of methoxychlor at reticulated vitreous carbon and silver mesh cathodes at potentials corresponding to each of the first three voltammetric peaks were conducted; coulometric n values and product distributions (determined by means of GC and GC–MS techniques) depend on potential. In particular, two completely dechlorinated products, namely 4,4′-(ethane-1,1-diyl)bis(methoxybenzene) and 4,4′(ethene-1,1-diyl)bis(methoxybenzene) have been identified and quantitated. A mechanistic scheme is proposed to account for the formation of the various products. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse of the work in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. [DOI: 10.1149/2.0921605jes] All rights reserved.