I am doing CV for ferrocene and the deuterated analogue of ferrocene. What might be expected from the CV with regards to shifts in the oxidation and reduction potentials?
You may or may not observe a significant isotopic effect depending if the oxidation condition do involve a rate-limiting hydride transfer or not. In the classic electrochemical oxidation, only the iron accepts/donated the electron and D would have an almost undetectable effect. In other words, the isotopic effect is expected if the rate-limiting step in your chemical reaction does involve a break or formation of an hydrogen-X bond (X = some other element).
In the case of ferrocene, electron transfer is very fast thus on CV you could only see thermodynamic effect. Moreover even if you could see the kinetics, it is a simple outersphere electron transfer without any bond breaking or formation.
From a thermodynamical point of view, I don't see why an isotopic effect would change the thermodynamics of the system.
Thus I would expect no change between both molecules, if you have one that could be very interesting.
To speak with Guillaume: did you find anything?
I would not expect a difference, since the oxidation of ferrocene is rather centred on the metal. See e.g. http://www.chemie.unibas.ch/~pc2/2013/ferrocene_MO.pdf
best
AXEL
Thank you Rogelio, Axel and Guillaume!
A small follow up to the question, if I have a mixture of the 2 compounds (the deuterated and the non-deuterated one), should I expect the CV to show 2 peaks for oxidation and reduction, or only 1?
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