Anisole as a solvent for organic electrochemistry

Anisole, PhOMe, is a weakly polar aprotic solvent with an electric permittivity, εs, equal to 4.33, which allows one to obtain excellent cyclic voltammetric curves at electrodes of conventional size but has a Pekar factor almost two times lower than THF and CH2Cl2 resulting in a lower solvent reorganization energy for electron transfer processes. Electrochemistry in anisole of a number of π-electron systems: ferrocene, anthracene, 1-chloro- and 9-chloroanthracene, is described.