Oxidation of copper(I) in seawater at nanomolar levels

The oxidation and reduction of nanomolar levels of copper in air-saturated seawater and NaCl solutions has been measured as a function of pH (7.17–8.49), temperature (5–35 °C) and ionic strength (0.1–0.7 M). The oxidation rates were fitted to an equation valid at different pH and ionic strength conditions in sodium chloride and seawater solutions: log k (NaCl) = 5.221 + 0.609 pH − 1915 / T − 1.818 I + 0.408 I log k (sw) = 5.036 + 0.514 pH − 1765 / T − 1.101 I + 0.233 I . duction of Cu(II) was studied in both media for different initial concentrations of copper(II). When the initial Cu(II) concentration was 200 nM, the copper(I) productions were 20% and 9% for NaCl and seawater, respectively. The effect of speciation of copper(I) reduced from Cu(II) on the rates was studied. The Cu(I) speciation is dominated by the CuCl2− species. On the other hand, the neutral chloride CuCl species dominates the Cu(I) oxidation in the range of 0.1 M to 0.7 M chloride concentrations.