Kinetic studies on the permanganic oxidation of amino acids. Effect of the length of amino acid carbon chain

The kinetic study of the permanganic oxidation of some amino acids (glycine, L-alanine, L-α-amino-n-butyric acid, L-norvaline, and L-norleucine) has been carried out in buffered acid medium at 1 < pH < 3 using a spectrophotometric technique. An autocatalytic effect due to Mn2+ ions was found in all cases. The purpose of this work is to study the influence of the length of carbon chain of the above amino acids. For it, structural factors such as steric, inductive, and hyperconjugation effects of the carbon chain were analyzed. It was found that the reactivity of these compounds is not affected by only one factor, but the influence of several factors and the formation of intermediate complexes could be included in these oxidative processes.