As a guide to the thermodynamics of intramolecular electron-transfer processes, the redox thermodynamics of three dinuclear transition-metal systems have been investigated in mixtures of acetonitrile and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as solvent. The specific systems are ( 2,2'-bipyridine)2C1Ru-L-Ru(NH3)4(pyridine)s+/4'/3t, where L is pyrazine, 4,4'-bipyridine, or bis(pyridy1)ethane. A special feature is that the tetraammineruthenium redox site in each interacts specifically with hydrogen-bond-accepting (electron-pair-donating) solvents (as demonstrated by various optical and electrochemical measurements (Curtis et al. Inorg. Chem. 1986, 25, 4233; 1987, 26, 2660)) whereas the (polypyridy1)ruthenium site does not. Thus, the formal potential (Ef) for the ammine fragment is shifted to progressively less positive values as the solvent is enriched in DMSO. Measurements of Ef for the Rulrr/ll-polypyridyl fragment demonstrate that the solvational effects are readily transmitted electronically from the ammine fragment when pyrazine is the bridge. Variable-temperature Ef measurements reveal a sharp positive "spike" in plots of the half-reaction entropy for each of the tetraammine couples versus mixed-solvent composition. A statistical calculation shows that the entropy spike is a direct consequence of the unsymmetrical preferential solvation of (2,2'-bipyridine)2Ru11-L-Ru111(NH3)4-(pyridine)4+ versus (2,2'-bipyridine)2Ru11-L-Ru11(NH3)4(pyridine)'+, as found elsewhere for monomeric redox couples and as earlier predicted from optical intervalence studies. Further examination shows that the entropy effects also are transmitted electronically from the tetraammine site to the polypyridyl site and are detectable in both the pyrazine-and 4,4'-bipyridine-bridged cases. An evaluation of the overall intervalence thermodynamics reveals that ASo "leads" AGO on a solvent molar composition coordinate. This suggests that unusual mixed-solvent-induced variations in activation parameters might also be observed in related kinetic experiments.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.