Standard ion transfer potential at the water|butyronitrile interface

Abstract

Butyronitrile is an organic solvent stable enough to be used in photochemical reactions at liquid/liquid interfaces. However, it provides a rather short polarisation window making the analysis of ion transfer across the water|butyronitrile interface challenging. Here, steady-state cyclic voltammetry, at microhole-supported micro-interfaces, was used to measure Gibbs energies of transfer. A linear relationship between the standard Gibbs energies of ion partition for the water|butyronitrile interface and the water|1,2-dichloroethane and water|nitrobencene interfaces was found, making easy to extrapolate the Gibbs energy of other ions from this empiric correlation.