ABSTRACT
Hypochlorous acid is an intermediate in important industrial processes such as the production of chlorate but is also used for water treatment and disinfection. In aqueous solutions hypochlorous acid may decompose into oxygen or chlorate. Using density functional theory (DFT) modelling we have for the first time established detailed mechanisms for the respective decomposition pathways. Our calculations indicate, that both oxygen and chlorate formation proceed through an identical set of intermediates. At neutral pH the reaction is initiated by a fast equilibrium between HOCl, OCl-, Cl2O and Cl3O2-. The subsequent abstraction of Cl- to form Cl2O2 is rate determining for chlorate formation while it is the decomposition of Cl2O2 in the case of oxygen formation. Under alkaline conditions, OCl- decomposition to chlorate proceeds through chlorite. This reaction path is significantly less active. The highest rate for chlorate or oxygen formation is found at pH 7.1. These results highlight the need to consider a complex mixture of different Cl species when addressing the chemistry of hypochlorous acid containing solutions.
ABSTRACT
An important reaction step in the industrial production of NaClO3 (electrochemical chlorate process) is the thermal decomposition of HOCl/OCl- to yield ClO3- and Cl-. It is widely accepted that this reaction is accelerated by aqueous chromium(vi) species. A detailed kinetic study was conducted under industrially relevant conditions, i.e. at high ionic strength (6.0 M) and elevated temperature (80 °C), to investigate this phenomenon. The decomposition of hypochlorous acid was followed in the presence of Cr(vi) or phosphate (PO43-) or without any additive. In addition to the beneficial pH buffering effect of Cr(vi), the CrO42- form of chromium(vi) was found to slightly catalyze the decomposition of hypochlorous acid. The overall rate of HOCl decomposition can be expressed as -dcHOCl/dt = kdec[HOCl]2[OCl-] + kcat[HOCl]2[CrO42-]. The corresponding rate constants were determined, kdec = 9.4 ± 0.1 M-2 s-1 and kcat = 4.6 ± 0.8 M-2 s-1, and mechanistic interpretation of the catalytic rate law is given. The contribution of the catalytic path to the overall rate of decomposition changes from ca. 30% at pH = 8 to ca. 70% at pH = 6.
ABSTRACT
Effective catalytic water-splitting can be electrochemically triggered in an alkaline solution of sodium hypochlorite. Hypochlorite oxidation on polycrystalline platinum yields ClO· radicals, which initiate a radical-assisted water-splitting, yielding oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, and protons. The efficiency of the O2 production corresponds to about two electrons per molecule of the produced O2 and is controlled primarily by the hypochlorite concentration and pH.
