Determination of ground and excited state dipole moments of some naphthols using solvatochromic shift method

Solvatochromic behavior of 1-naphthol (N1) and 2-naphthol (N2) has been studied in different solvents at room temperature (298 K). The ground and first excited singlet state dipole moments are estimated using solvatochromic shift method. Bakhshiev and Kawski and Bilot correlations based on bulk solvent polarity parameters are applied. The results are further verified by using the microscopic solvent polarity parameter E_T^N. For both molecules investigated, the excited state dipole moments are larger than the corresponding values in the ground state. Moreover, for N1, the values obtained in aprotic solvents are much less than those obtained when protic solvents are included, which underlines the presence of specific interaction in case of protic solvents.