Chapter 36: Problem 44
Oxygen sensing is important in biological studies of many systems. The variation in oxygen content of sapwood trees was measured by del Hierro and coworkers \([J . \text { Experimental Biology } 53(2002): 559]\) by monitoring the luminescence intensity of \(\left[\operatorname{Ru}(\operatorname{dpp})_{3}\right]^{2+}\) immobilized in a sol-gel that coats the end of an optical fiber implanted into the tree. As the oxygen content of the tree increases, the luminescence from the ruthenium complex is quenched. The quenching of \(\left[\mathrm{Ru}(\mathrm{dpp})_{3}\right]^{2+}\) by \(\mathrm{O}_{2}\) was measured by Bright and coworkers [Applied Spectroscopy \(52(1998): 750]\) and the following data were obtained: $$\begin{array}{rr} I_{0} / I & \% \mathrm{O}_{2} \\ \hline 3.6 & 12 \\ 4.8 & 20 \\ 7.8 & 47 \\ 12.2 & 100 \end{array}$$ a. Construct a Stern-Volmer plot using the data supplied in the table. For \(\left[\operatorname{Ru}(\operatorname{dpp})_{3}\right]^{2+} k_{r}=1.77 \times 10^{5} \mathrm{s}^{-1},\) what is \(k_{q} ?\) b. Comparison of the Stern-Volmer prediction to the quenching data led the authors to suggest that some of the \(\left[\operatorname{Ru}(\operatorname{dpp})_{3}\right]^{2+}\) molecules are located in sol-gel environments that are not equally accessible to \(\mathrm{O}_{2}\). What led the authors to this suggestion?
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