“…Thus the active species of nitrite can be established to be HN02 only. Further the parallelism of the reactivity of the different PMPA species, namely, H3P05, HzPO,, and HPOg-, with linearly decreasing electrophilicity [lo] order indicates a polar mechanism, preferably an electrophilic attack by the PMPA species on the nucleophilic center of the nitrite (that is, the nitrogen atom with its lone pair), as in the case of other nucleophiles like alkyl sulfides [7], amines [10,11], and halides [12,13] by PMPA. It is interesting to note that H202, CH3C03H, and HSO; react with nitrite by similar mechanisms [2].…”