Influence of medium viscosity on photophysical properties of kynurenic acid and kynurenine yellow

Dependences of the fluorescence and triplet state quantum yields of kynurenic acid (1) and kynurenine yellow (2) in water—glycerol mixtures on medium viscosity have been studied. The main channel of the singlet excited state decay of compound 1 is the intersystem crossing, which rate weakly depends on the viscosity; only a small (approximately 1.5-fold) increase in the fluorescence yield was found for this compound with the increase of the solution viscosity from 0.84 cP (aqueous solution) to 78 cP (86% glycerol). The deactivation of the S₁ state of compound 2 is caused mainly by the internal conversion, and a noticeable increase of the fluorescence yield (approximately 3-fold), as well as the change in the photolysis product yields, was observed with the increasing percentage of glycerol in the mixture. The triplet state quantum yields for compounds 1 and 2 remained unchanged with the variation of the glycerol content in the mixture.