Eletrochemical characterization of Scopoletin, a 7-hydroxy-6-methoxy-coumarin

The coumarins are an important class of phytochemicals with wide range of biological activities. The 7-hydroxy-6-methoxycoumarin, scopoletin is a biomarker widespread in plant kingdom, especially in the phytotherapic and nutraceutical ones. A considerable number of patents and scientific papers concerning its amazing pharmacological properties highlights the relevance of scopoletin. How your benzo-α-pyrone skeleton, resembling the flavonoid antioxidants, the electrochemical characterization of scopoletin can be a useful tool to understand the behavior between chemical and biological properties. Therefore, the aim of this work was to develop the electrochemical characterization of scopoletin at glassy carbon electrode, in a wide range of electrolyte conditions by means of cyclic, differential pulse and square wave voltammetry. Thus, it was found that akin to what would be expected for phenolic compounds, the 7-hydroxy group undergoes electrochemical oxidation at Ep1a ~0.7 V, meanwhile it leads to different oxidation products that showed to be oxidized at lower potentials. An oxidation mechanism was proposed, considering the results herein obtained.