REACTIONS OF SULFACETAMIDE WITH PULSE RADIOLYTICALLY GENERATED REDUCING RADICALS

Pulse radiolysis technique has been used to characterise the transients formed by the reaction of sulphacetamide with e(aq)(-) and subsequently study the electron transfer reactions from the transient to various election accepters such as thionine, safranine-T and methyl viologen. The results indicate that the semi-reduced sulphacetamide species are highly reducing in nature as they transfer electrons to various dyes with near diffusion controlled rates (k > 10(9)dm(3)mol(-1)s(-1)) in alkaline and acidic solutions. The influence of oxygen on the decay behaviour of semi-reduced species has been investigated and the results show that O-2, reaction with SA(-) is very fast (k = 1.5 x 10(9)dm(3)mol(-1)s(-1)) and leads to the formation of a permanent-coloured product. Reactions of H atoms resulted in the formation of two transient species whose spectral, kinetic and acid-base characteristics have also been investigated.