Title of Project:
Synthesis and application of ferrate ion.

Responsable: 
Pablo Perez, PhD.
Email: pabloperez@lp.upb.edu
Sandra Ibáñez-Calero, PhD.
Email: sandraibanez@lp.upb.edu

Researchers:
Pablo Perez, PhD.

Summary:
Every day there is more research directed to the search of friendly chemical reactions with the environment with the aim of supporting industrial and research processes.  One of the “green” reactions that called the CIF interest is the oxidation of ferrate ion () where iron has an oxidation state of +6.  Within an aqueous solution, iron is quickly oxidized to  with standard reduction potentials of +2.2 V (in an acidic environment) and +0.72 V (in a basic environment). These potential values are comparable to those presented by strong common oxidants such as ozone.  This project seeks to apply the oxidant power of ferrate ion to monitor the presence of compounds that avoid its oxidation (antioxidant compounds).  In other words, the objectives of this work are to synthetize the ferrate ion and use its oxidation reaction in the search of antioxidant extracts and/or compounds.   Within the project’s first part, two synthetics processes were undertaken to obtain the ferrate ion (chemical humid synthesis and electrochemical synthesis).  The synthetized ferrate ion was submitted to spectroscopic (UV) analysis for its characterization.  Stability studies were also undertaken following decomposition kinetics at the environment temperature.  Thanks to these studies, it is concluded that the best synthetic method is the humid chemical and that the stability of the synthetized ion is of  6.5 hrs. Currently, the oxidative process presented by the ferrate ion is being studied to be applied in antioxidant essays that might be more economical than those performed with the DPPH reactive.  Up to date similarities have been found between both essays (ferrate ion and DPPH).