Photocatalysis of p-halophenols: substituent effect interpreted by the kinetic family concept

MEDINA, JUDITH; SCHARIFKER, BENJAMÍN R.; CABRERIZO, FRANCO M.; MADRIZ, LOREAN; VARGAS, RONALD

Virtual congress

Congreso; TWAS Fifteenth General Conference on Advancing frontier science, technology and innovation for SDGs in developing countries; 2021

The World Academy of Sciences

In this work, the photooxidation kinetics of p-halophenols (p-XP; X = H, Cl, Br, I) has been studied. The formation and degradation of the intermediates involved (HQ: hydroquinone, BQ, benzoquinone, MA: maleic acid) during the photocatalytic process based on TiO2 and UV light from natural sunlight, was resolved by multivariate calibration. The breaking of the C-X bond was considered the key step in the photodegradation reaction. In fact, the binding energy (Ec-x) is presented as an appropriate descriptor of the photocatalytic behavior. By extra-thermodynamic consideration, Ec-x is assumed to contain a significant fraction of the activation energy and, using the natural time scale analysis, reactive processes have been shown to respond to the same rate limiting step, which is seen kinetically affected by the effect of the substituent. Additionally, photoluminescence studies will be carried out in order to demonstrate differences in lifetimes for each halophenol.