Chemical and Electrochemical Electron-Transfer Theory

One of the active areas in reaction kinetics during the post-war years has that of electron-transfer reactions. These reactions constitute one type oxidation-reduction process and include both chemical and electrochemical. Many rate constants have now been measured (1-8) and have stimulated a variety of theoretical studies (9-37). The field has characterized by a strong interplay of theory and experiment, which includes the testing of theoretically predicted quantitative correlations (34). Because of a certain unique feature of the purely electron-transfer --the absence of bond rupture in the reaction step--these correlations unusual. They do not have the arbitrary parameters that occur theoretical studies of most other reactions in chemical kinetics. This review be limited to purely electron transfer reactions.