Ultrafast vibrational dynamics of SCN(-) and N3(-) in polar solvents studied by nonlinear infrared spectroscopy

In this paper, we report on our investigation into the vibrational dynamics of the antisymmetric stretching modes of SCN(-) and N(3)(-) in several polar solvents. We used an infrared (IR) pump-probe method to study orientational relaxation processes. In two aprotic solvents (N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)), the anisotropy decay shows a bimodal feature, whereas in other solvents the anisotropy decay can be fitted well by a single exponential function. We consider that the relative contribution of fast-decaying components is smaller in the other solvents than in DMF and DMSO. We discuss the possible origins of the different anisotropy decay behavior in different solvents. From the three-pulse IR photon echo measurements for SCN(-) and N(3)(-), we found that the time-correlation functions (TCFs) of vibrational frequency fluctuations decay on two different time scales, one of which is less than 100 fs and the other is approximately 3-6 ps. In aprotic solvents, the fast-decaying components of the TCFs on a <100 fs time scale play an important role in the vibrational frequency fluctuation, although the contribution of collective solvent reorganization in aprotic solvents was clearly observed to have small amplitudes. On the other hand, we found that the amplitude of components that decay in a few picoseconds and/or the constant offset of the TCF in protic solvents is relatively large compared with that in aprotic solvents. With the formation and dissociation of hydrogen bonds between ion solute and solvent molecules, the spectra of different solvated species are exchanged with each other and merged into one band. We considered that this exchange may be an origin of slow-decaying components of the TCFs and that the decay of the TCFs corresponds to the time scales of the exchange for protic solvents such as formamide. The mechanism of vibrational frequency fluctuations for the antisymmetric stretching modes of SCN(-) and N(3)(-) is discussed in terms of the difference between protic and aprotic solvents.     

Solute–Solvent Interactions of Methyl Violet in Different Solvents on Spectral Data

Spectroscopic studies of Methyl violet in protic (water, methanol, ethanol, isopropanol and n-butanol) and aprotic solvents (acetone, DMF) were carried out. UV-Visible absorption spectra of Methyl violet in protic solvents showed a hypsochromic shift, as the solvent polarity was changed from less polar to more polar, while a bathochromic shift was observed for aprotic solvents. Transition energy of Methyl violet in different solvents was correlated with solvatochromic parameters to study solute–solvents interactions. The Kamlet–Taft, Catalan and unified scale models were applied to investigate interactions between Methyl violet and solvents. The best agreement is found for the Catalan model.     

Solute-Solvent Interactions in Solutions of Solvatochromic Phenoxides: A Dynamics Simulation Study

Solute-solvent interactions in protic (water, methanol and 2-propanol) and aprotic (DMSO) solvents of four solvatochromic phenoxides, the 4- and 2-pyridiniophenoxides, Brooker’s merocyanine and the N-methyloxyquinolinium betaine, were investigated with the aid of molecular dynamics simulations. Although the size of the first solvation shell of the phenoxide oxygen of all betaines remains constant in the three protic solvents, it comprises increasingly fewer solvent molecules as the volume of the hydroxylic solvent increases. In DMSO, the donor phenoxide group of the 4-pyridiniophenoxide betaine is loosely solvated, leading to an internal charge-transfer with smaller transition energies than in protic media.     

Photochemistry of 5-aminoquinoline in protic and aprotic solvents

Photophysical properties of 5-aminoquinoline (5AQ) have been investigated in various non-polar and polar (protic and aprotic) solvents using steady state and time resolved fluorescence. In aprotic solvents, the spectral maxima depend on the polarity. However, in protic solvents both the fluorescence intensity as well decay time show decrease depending on the hydrogen bonding ability of the solvent. The results suggest that photochemistry 5AQ is quite sensitive towards the polarity as well as protic character of the solvent.     

一步法合成高T_g可溶含偶氮三嗪发色团的新型侧链含氟聚酰亚胺

采用一步法合成了一系列侧链含偶氮三嗪发色团的新型含氟聚酰亚胺FPI(x),并研究其溶解性能、热性能以及光学性能.该系列聚酰亚胺具有优良的溶解性能,不仅溶于NMP,DMAc,DMF,DMSO等强极性非质子性溶剂,而且还溶于THF和乙二醇单甲醚等低沸点溶剂.FPI(x)系列共聚聚酰亚胺具有较高的玻璃化转变温度(T_g,在544～562K之间),且与主链中染料发色团的含量无关.所有聚酰亚胺都表现出优良的高温稳定性,其5%热失重温度(T₅)比T_g高出100K以上,基本能满足电场极化对聚合物材料热稳定性的要求.另外,FPI(x)系列聚酰亚胺的紫外截止吸收波长小于500nm,即在大于500nm波长范围内基本透明.其面内折光指数n_TE随着染料发色团含量的增加而逐渐增加.     

Preferential Solvation of Ions in Mixed Solvents. 5. The Alkali Metal, Silver, and Thallium(I) Cations in Aqueous Organic Solvents According to the Inverse Kirkwood-Buff Integral (IKBI) Approach

The inverse Kirkwood-Buff integral (IKBI) approach is applied, as far as the relevant data exist in the literature, to the preferential solvation of Li⁺, Na⁺, K⁺, Rb⁺, Cs⁺, Ag⁺, and Tl⁺ in aqueous mixtures of methanol, ethanol, 1,2-ethanediol (EG), acetonitrile, formamide, N,N,-dimethylformamide (DMF), N,N,N′,N′,N″,N″-hexamethyl phosphoric triamide (HMPT), and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). In aqueous EG and formamide the preferential solvation is very small. Water is the preferred solvent in the solvation shells in aqueous methanol, ethanol and acetonitrile (except for Ag⁺ in the latter solvent) but the co-solvent is preferred in aqueous mixtures of DMF, HMPT, and DMSO over most or all of the composition range. For the latter three mixtures the larger donicity of the co-solvents causes their preference, whereas where water is preferred over other protic solvents, it is the small size of the water molecules that appears to be the cause.     

Rotational diffusion in aprotic and protic solvents

We present the orientational relaxation times in protic and aprotic solvents for rose bengal in its lowest excited singlet state. The method uses a mode locked dye laser for polarized excitation, and time correlated single photon counting for determination of the time resolved polarized fluorescence. The observed orientational decay for the dipolar aprotic solvents and the alcohols are in agreement with the values predicted by the Stokes-Einstein diffusion equation. In the latter solvents, volume and shape corrections must be made for attachment of the alcohol to the two anion sites of the dye molecule. The solvent N-methylformamide, however, shows rose bengal reorienting much faster than the alcohols. Our interpretation of this data suggests that agreement with the Stokes-Einstein equation (stick boundary conditions) is coincidental. We propose a solvent torque model in which the solvent interaction at each anion site of rose bengal controls the deviations from an expected slip boundary condition. This qualitative model is used to correlate our data as well as relevant data in the literature. The values in picoseconds for the observed orientational relaxation times are given in parenthesis; acetone (70), DMF (160), DMSO (420), MeOH (190), EtOH (450), isopropanol (840), NMF (500).     

Mechanistic study of the photochemical hydroxide ion release from 9-hydroxy-10-methyl-9-phenyl-9,10-dihydroacridine

The excited-state behavior of 9-hydroxy-10-methyl-9-phenyl-9,10-dihydroacridine and its derivative, 9-methoxy-10-methyl-9-phenyl-9,10-dihydroacridine (AcrOR, R = H, Me), was studied via femtosecond and nanosecond UV-vis transient absorption spectroscopy. The solvent effects on C-O bond cleavage were clearly identified: a fast heterolytic cleavage (τ = 108 ps) was observed in protic solvents, while intersystem crossing was observed in aprotic solvents. Fast heterolysis generates 10-methyl-9-phenylacridinium (Acr(+)) and (-)OH, which have a long recombination lifetime (no signal decay was observed within 100 μs). AcrOH exhibits the characteristic behavior needed for its utilization as a chromophore in the pOH jump experiment.     

Radical-type reactions in protic and aprotic media: Comparisons in nickel-catalysed electrochemical reductive cyclisations

The electrochemical reductive cyclisation of unsaturated organic halides in the presence of Ni(II) complexes as catalysts was examined in aprotic solvents such as DMF and in protic solvents such as ethanol, butanol or ethanol–water mixtures. The presence of the alcohol media enhanced the rate of recycling of the catalytic species.     

Solvatochromic study of 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone in neat and binary solvent mixtures

Preferential solvation of a solvatochromic probe has been studied in binary mixtures comprising of a non-protic and a protic solvent. The non-protic solvents employed are carbon tetrachloride (CCl(4)), acetonitrile (AcN) and N,N-dimethyl formamide (DMF) and the protic solvents are methanol (MeOH) and ethanol (EtOH). The probe molecule exhibits different spectroscopic characteristics depending upon the properties of the solubilizing media. The observed spectral features provide an indication of the microenvironment immediately surrounding the probe. Solvatochromic shifts of the ground and excited states of the probe were analysed by monitoring the charge transfer absorption band and the fluorescence emission spectra in terms of the solute-solvent and solvent-solvent interactions. Fluorescence emission spectra show the dual emission due to excited state proton transfer nature of the probe molecule. The effect of solvent and the excitation energy on dual emission are also studied. The observed magnitude of the Stokes shift in the above solvents has been used to deduce experimentally the dipole moment ratio of the probe molecule for the excited state to the ground state. The dipole moment of excited state is higher than the ground state.     

Kinetics and Mechanism of Monomolecular Heterolysis of Commercial Organohalogen Compounds: XXXI. Solvent Effect on the Rate of 1-Methyl-1-chlorocyclopentane Heterolysis. Correlation Analysis of Solvation Effects

Heterolysis of 1-methyl-1-chlorocyclopentane in protic and aprotic solvents occurs by the E1 mechanism. The reaction rate in aprotic solvents or in a set of protic and aprotic solvents is satisfactorily described by the parameters of the polarity and electrophilicity or ionizing power of the solvents. In protic solvents, the reaction rate grows with increasing polarity or ionizing power of the solvent and decreases with increasing nucleophilicity.     

Ab initio study of the solvent H-bonding effect on ESIPT reaction and electronic transitions of 3-hydroxychromone derivatives

The electronic transitions occurring in 4-(N,N-dimethylamino)-3-hydroxyflavone (DMAF) and 2-furanyl-3-hydroxychromone (FHC) were investigated using the TDDFT method in aprotic and protic solvents. The solvent effect was incorporated into the calculations via the PCM formalism. The H-bonding between solute and protic solvent was taken into account by considering a molecular complex between these molecules. To examine the effect of the H-bond on the ESIPT reaction, the absorption and emission wavelengths as well as the energies of the different states that intervene during these electronic transitions were calculated in acetonitrile, ethanol and methanol. The calculated positions of the absorption and emission wavelengths in various solvents were in excellent agreement with the experimental spectra, validating our approach. We found that in DMAF, the hydrogen bonding with protic solvents makes the ESIPT reaction energetically unfavourable, which explains the absence of the ESIPT tautomer emission in protic solvents. In contrast, the excited tautomer state of FHC remains energetically favourable in both aprotic and protic solvents. Comparing our calculations with the previously reported time-resolved fluorescence data, the ESIPT reaction of DMAF in aprotic solvents is reversible because the emitting states are energetically close, whereas in FHC, ESIPT is irreversible because the tautomer state is below the corresponding normal state. Therefore, the ESIPT reaction in DMAF is controlled by the relative energies of the excited states (thermodynamic control), while in FHC the ESIPT is controlled probably by the energetic barrier (kinetic control).     

Apparent molar volumes of urea in several solvents as functions of temperature and concentration

Apparent molar volumes of urea are measured over a temperature range in water, methanol, ethanol, formamide, DMF and DMSO. The limiting apparent molar volumes show a large variation in different solvents. In marked contrast to the situation in water, the temperature dependence of the limiting apparent molar volumes in the nonaqueous solvents is slight. The concentration dependence is discussed qualitatively in terms of solute association.Now Diane Beaumont.     

2,3,5,6-Tetrakis-(2'-pyridyl)-pyrazine as a colorimetric reagent for iron

The reactivity of the tridentate organic ligand, 2,3,5,6-tetrakis-(2'-pyridyl)-pyrazine, toward hydrogen ion and transition metal ions was investigated. The purple color of the bis-2,3,5,6-tetra-(2'-pyridyl)-pyrazine-iron(II) complex can be used in a colorimetric method for iron(II). The complex in aqueous solution exhibits a wavelength of maximum absorption at 575 mμ and a molar absorptivity of 19,800 in the pH range of 3.0–7.0. Beer's law is obeyed over the concentration range 5.0–100· 10^-6M. The perchlorate salt of the complex is extractable into chloroform and nitrobenzene with absorption maxima of 570 mμ and 573 mμ and molar absorptivities of 19,200 and 17,400, respectively. The effects of diverse ions and the results of determinations on selected samples are discussed.     

Solvent influence on the photophysical properties of 4-methoxy-N-methyl-1,8-naphthalimide

4-Methoxy-N-methyl-1,8-naphthalimide (1) exhibits considerable solvatochromism and its UV-vis spectral properties have been studied in several polar/non-polar and protic/aprotic solvents, as well as in ethanol-water mixtures. The results reveal a strong influence of the solvent's polarity and its hydrogen-bond donor (HBD) capability on the photophysical properties of 1. For binary ethanol/water mixtures, preferential solvation models describe the band shifts in the probe's visible absorption spectrum well, but they fail to describe the corresponding shifts of the emission maxima. Pseudolinear approximations between solvent composition and molecule's transition energies, E(T), can be used to study the composition of ethanol-water mixtures, simplifying the mathematical treatment for eventual analytical applications.     

Proton-transfer reaction of 4-methyl 2,6-diformyl phenol in cyclodextrin nanocage

We report here on the steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence studies on proton-transfer (PT) reaction of 4-methyl 2,6-diformyl phenol (MFOH) in confined nanocavities in three solvents, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), dimethyl formamide (DMF), and water. Though DMSO and DMF individually interact with MFOH in a similar fashion, their modes of interaction get significantly modified in the presence of cyclodextrin (CD) nanocages. In DMSO, in the ground state, the solvated molecular anion of MFOH forms 1:1 inclusion complex with beta- or gamma-CD and attains greater stability compared to the normal form. In DMF, the solvated molecular anion gets converted to the H-bonded complex within the CD cavity resulting in a 50-nm blue shift in the absorption spectra. In the excited state, the anionic species gets more stabilized in DMSO while in DMF it is significantly destabilized in the presence of CDs. However, in case of water, MFOH gets trapped inside the water cages so that the CDs fail to complex with it effectively. There are also no changes in the excited-state lifetimes in water in the presence of CDs, but in case of DMSO and DMF, because of restricted rotation of the formyl group within the CD cavity, the contribution of the shorter lifetime components reduce significantly increasing the larger components. Some theoretical calculations at the AM1 level of approximation have also been carried out to demonstrate how the dipolar nature of the solvent influences excited-state PT in confined media.     

Unusual spectral shifts on fast violet-B and benzanilide: Effect of solvents, pH and β-cyclodextin

The absorption and fluorescence spectra of fast violet-B (FVB) and benzanilide (BA) have been analysed in different solvents, pH and β-cyclodextrin. The inclusion complex of FVB with β-CD is investigated by UV–visible, fluorimetry, AM 1, FTIR and SEM. The absorption maximum of FVB (anilino substitution) is red shifted than that of BA, but the benzoyl substitution hardly changed the ground state structure of BA. Compared to BA, the emission maxima of FVB largely blue shifted in cyclohexane and aprotic solvents, but red shifted in protic solvents and the longer wavelength maxima in FVB is due to the intramolecular charge transfer (TICT). In BA, the normal emission originates from a locally excited state and the longer wavelength band due to intramolecular proton transfer in non-polar/aprotic solvents and in protic solvents it is due to TICT state. β-CD studies reveal that, FVB forms 1:2 complex from 1:1 complex and BA forms 1:2 complex with β-CD.     

Photoisomerization of the green fluorescence protein chromophore and the meta- and para-amino analogues

The Z --> E photoisomerization and fluorescence quantum yields for the wild-type green fluorescence protein (GFP) chromophore (p-HBDI) and its meta- and para-amino analogues (m-ABDI and p-ABDI) in aprotic solvents (hexane, THF, and acetonitrile) and protic solvents (methanol and 10-20% H(2)O in THF) are reported. The dramatic decrease in the quantum yields on going from aprotic to protic solvents indicates the important role of solvent-solute hydrogen bonding in the nonradiative decay pathways. The enhanced fluorescence of m-ABDI is also discussed.     

Role of homogeneous solvents on photophysics of 3-pyrazolyl-2-pyrazoline derivative

S₀ → S₁ and S₀ → S₂ electronic transitions have been observed in UV–Visible absorption spectroscopy of 3-pyrazolyl-2-pyrazoline (PZ) in different homogeneous solvents. Radiative emissions and relaxation processes from S₁ and S₂ states of PZ have been resolved in water, ethylene glycol and glycerol whereas in polar aprotic and protic solvents the radiative transitions have been observed from S₁ state. The S₂–S₁ electronic energy spacing has been calculated from the absorption maxima of the S₀ → S₂ transitions and fluorescence maxima of the S₁ → S₀ transitions. Solute–solvent interactions have been established to rationalize the photophysical modification of PZ in H-bonding solvents.     

Effect of Confinement on the Properties of Sequestered Mixed Polar Solvents: Enzymatic Catalysis in Nonaqueous 1,4‐Bis‐2‐ethylhexylsulfosuccinate Reverse Micelles

The influence of different glycerol, N,N‐dimethylformamide (DMF) and water mixtures encapsulated in 1,4‐bis‐2‐ethylhexylsulfosuccinate (AOT)/n‐heptane reverse micelles (RMs) on the enzymatic hydrolysis of 2‐naphthyl acetate by α‐chymotrypsin is demonstrated. In the case of the mixtures with DMF and protic solvents it has been previously shown, using absorption, emission and dynamic light‐scattering techniques, that solvents are segregated inside the polar core of the RMs. Protic solvents anchor to the AOT, whereas DMF locates to the polar core of the aggregate. Thus, DMF not only helps to solubilize the hydrophobic substrate, increasing its effective concentrations but surprisingly, it does not affect the enzyme activity. The importance of ensuring the presence of RMs, encapsulation of the polar solvents and the corrections by substrate partitioning in order to obtain reliable conclusions is highlighted. Moreover, the effect of a constrained environment on solvent–solvent interactions in homogenous media and its impact on the use of RMs as nanoreactors is stressed.