The role of early stages of dioxygen activation in the biological and catalytic activity of phenol-type natural antioxidants

The main aspect of the A.N. Bakh peroxide theory of slow oxidation is the development of concepts on the role of peroxide compounds and the early stages of activation of molecular oxygen in reactions of biological oxidation. The use of modern physicochemical methods, namely, spectroscopy, pulse radiolysis, and ac polarography in studying the catalytic and antioxidant properties of natural compounds, flavonoids, makes it possible to detect the oxidation reaction intermediates which represent the partial-charge-transfer complexes [nQrδ+…mO 2 ∞− ] and also to explain the possibility of formation of nanostructured metal particles in reverse micelles in the presence of oxygen with quercetin Qr acting as reducing agent.