ABSTRACT
In 1881, Fenton published a brief description of the powerful oxidizing properties of a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and ferrous salts. This mixture became known as
Fenton’s reagent
, and the reaction has become known as the
Fenton’s reaction
. Initially, Fenton applied this reaction to oxidize organic acids such as formic, glycolic, lactic, tartronic, malic, saccharic, mucic, glyceric, benzoic, picric, dihydroxytartaric, dihydroxymaleic, and acetylenedicarboxylic (Fenton, 1900). In the absence of ferrous salt, the degradation of hydrogen peroxide proceeds at very slow rates, with little or no oxidation of the organic acids (Fenton, 1899, 1900). In addition, Cross et al. (1900) further confirmed that ferrous salts significantly enhance the kinetics of hydrogen peroxide decomposition. Goldhammer (1927) investigated the effect of Fenton’s reagent on phenols and found that for each equivalent of Fe
three equivalents of H
O
were decomposed. They also noted that in concentrated hydrogen peroxide solutions each mole of Fe
decomposed 24 equivalents of hydrogen peroxide.
