Ferrous iron reduction of superoxide, a proton-coupled electron-transfer four-point test

Nelsen's four-point method of separating oxidants and reductants has been tested to evaluate its applicability to proton-coupled electron-transfer reactions. An efficient computational method was developed to determine rate-limiting steps in complex, multistep redox reactions. Geochemical redox reactions are rarely single-step, and by identifying the rate-limiting steps, computational time can be greatly reduced. The reaction of superoxide and ferrous oxide was selected as a test case for its simplicity and its importance in environmental radical generation chemistry (Fenton's reaction). Two approaches, one quantum mechanical and the other semiempirical, were compared. In both approaches, hybrid density functional theory (DFT) was used with the B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) basis set and a polarized continuum model of the solvent to minimize the structures and determine the energies. In the quantum mechanical case, DFT was used to determine both the Gibbs free energies and the values for the intrinsic component of the reorganization energy of possible combinations of reactants and products. In the latter, experimental DeltaG(f) values were combined with calculated intrinsic reorganization energy values. The computational results matched the relative difference in rate barriers between the reduction of superoxide by ferrous iron above and below pH 4.8. In the acidic pH range, the proton is coupled to the electron transfer, whereas in the neutral case, the proton initiates the electron transfer.