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:logk(NaCl)=5.221+0.609pH−1915/T−1.818I+0.408Ilogk(sw)=5.036+0.514pH−1765/T−1.101I+0.233I.The reduction 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.