Kinetics of ruthenium(III) catalyzed and uncatalyzed oxidation of monoethanolamine by N-bromosuccinimide

Kinetics of uncatalyzed and ruthenium(III) catalyzed oxidation of monoethanolamine by N -bromosuccinimide (NBS) has been studied in an aqueous acetic acid medium in the presence of sodium acetate and perchloric acid, respectively. In the uncatalyzed oxidation the kinetic orders are: the first order in NBS, a fractional order in the substrate. The rate of the reaction increased with an increase in the sodium acetate concentration and decreased with an increase in the perchloric acid concentration. This indicates that free amine molecules are the reactive species. Addition of halide ions results in a decrease in the kinetic rate, which is noteworthy. Both in absence and presence of a catalyst, a decrease in the dielectric constant of the medium decreases the kinetic rate pointing out that these are dipole—dipole reactions. A relatively higher oxidation state of ruthenium i.e., Ru(V) was found to be the active species in Ru(III) catalyzed reactions. A suitable mechanism consistent with the observations has been proposed and a rate law has been derived to explain the kinetic orders.