A Polarographic Study of Nitro Compounds

Abstract

In order to verify the structures of a group of substituted 4-nitro-5-phenylcyclohexenes and to determine if certain derivatives caused any steric hindrance to the nitro group, a polarographic study of these compounds was initiated. Since no literature exists on the behavior of cyclo aliphatic nitro compounds at the dropping mercury electrode, it was of interest also to compare their behavior with simple aliphatic and aromatic nitro compounds.De Vries and Ivett (1) made a polarographic study of six aliphatic nitro compounds with the expectation of developing an analytical method for these compounds. They found that the half-wave potentials were very similar for all six compounds and that the diffusion currents were proportional to concentration if 0.05 M sulfuric acid was the supporting electrolyte. However, this proportionality did not hold in 0.05 M sodium sulfate. They attributed this non-linearity to the partial conversion of the nitro compound to the non-reducible -form in the neutral background.