Intermolecular Vibrational Relaxation in Mixtures of Excited Benzophenone and Anthraquinone Molecules with Water Vapor

The intermolecular vibrational energy transfer from triplet molecules of benzophenone and anthraquinone to H₂O molecules has been investigated. To determine the rates of establishment of vibrational (V-V) and thermal (V-T) equilibrium in a vibrational quasi-continuum of mixed singlet-triplet levels, the dependences of the decay rates and intensities of the fast and slow components of delayed fluorescence on the H₂O vapor pressure have been investigated. For V-V relaxation, the efficiencies ₁ and the mean energies E transferred per collision in mixtures with H₂O and other polyatomic foreign gases have been compared. It has been established that the efficiencies ₁ for quasi-resonant vibrational energy transfer (V-V) from benzophenone and anthraquinone to H₂O are an order of magnitude lower than the gas-kinetic ones and lower than those obtained under the same experimental conditions for such foreign gases as C₅H₁₂, SF₆, and CCl₄, and decrease with increasing temperature in the 433–513 K range. It has been concluded that the mechanism of V-V relaxation in mixtures with H₂O are determined by long-range attractive forces. In mixtures with H₂O, no acceleration of V-T relaxation due to the formation of hydrogen bonds has been revealed. The low-efficiency thermalization process (V-T relaxation) is controlled by short-range repulsive forces, and the differences between the intensities ₂ for mixtures of benzophenone and anthraquinone with H₂O and other polyatomic gases are determined by the change in the reduced mass of interacting molecules.