Mechanistic aspects of uncatalyzed and ruthenium(III) catalyzed oxidation of dl-ornithine monohydrochloride by silver(III) periodate complex in aqueous alkaline medium

The oxidation of an amino acid, dl-ornithine monohydrochloride (OMH) by diperiodatoargentate(III) (DPA) was carried out both in the absence and presence of ruthenium(III) catalyst in alkaline medium at 25 °C and a constant ionic strength of 0.10 mol dm⁻³ spectrophotometrically. The reaction was of first order in both catalyzed and uncatalyzed cases, with respect to [DPA] and was less than unit order in [OMH] and negative fraction in [alkali]. The order with respect to [OMH] changes from first order to zero order as the [OMH] increases. The order with respect to Ru(III) was unity. The uncatalyzed reaction in alkaline medium has been shown to proceed via a DPA-OMH complex, which decomposes in a rate determining step to give the products. Where as in catalyzed reaction, it has been shown to proceed via a Ru(III)-OMH complex, which further reacts with two molecules of DPA in a rate determining step to give the products. The reaction constants involved in the different steps of the mechanisms were calculated for both the reactions. The catalytic constant (K_Cat.const.) was also calculated for catalyzed reaction at different temperatures. The activation parameters with respect to slow step of the mechanism and also the thermodynamic quantities were determined.