Chlorophenols (CPs) are organic compounds that are often used as insecticides, pesticides and/or herbicides due to their antimicrobial properties. However, these compounds are toxic to the environment and can potentially bioaccumulate; causing them to be problematic for human health. This results in a number of them being placed on the EPA’s list of Priority Pollutants. Contamination of CPs into the environment is widespread as many of the proposed hazardous sites to be included in the EPA National Priority List (NPL) contain CPs. This leads to a need for simple on-site monitoring of these compounds. Electrochemistry is an attractive means to accomplish this due to its simplicity, high sensitivity, and portability. Unfortunately, the electrochemical oxidation of CPs tends to foul the electrode, causing material accumulation on the surface. This results in a significant decrease in the performance and hinders the long-term monitoring ability of the compounds.

This project focused on a new way of detecting CPs by using hypervalent iodine (HVI) compounds to initially chemically oxidize the CPs, then electrochemically reduce the product formed. HVIs are known to chemically oxidize phenols, but little to no electrochemical studies have been conducted on the forming products. This presentation will show a preliminary study applying a specific HVI compound, Hydroxy(tosyloxy)iodobenzene (HTIB), to oxidize the CPs to quinone compounds, which can be electrochemically reduced. This allows for the indirect detection of CPs and would overcome the issue of electrode fouling. Specifically, we will present spectroscopic and electrochemical studies using HTIB to chemically oxidize 2-chlorophenol (2-CP) and 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) into products as an explorative experiment to determine the viability of this procedure for chlorophenol detection.