Determination of individual proton affinities of reserpine from its UV-vis and charge-transfer spectra.

Proton affinities of the two N atoms of reserpine (methyl-11,17alpha-dimethoxy-18beta-[(3,4,5-trimethoxybenzoyl)oxy]-3beta,20alpha-yohimban-16beta-carboxylate) have been determined in two ways from the pH-dependent variation of the UV-vis absorption spectra (i) of reserpine itself and (ii) of the charge-transfer (CT) spectra of its complexes with o-chloranil, p-chloranil, and DDQ in aqueous medium (containing 0.1% ethanol v/v). For the second method, the CT absorption bands of the complexes were determined, their formation constants were estimated by a modified Benesi-Hildebrand equation, and variation of CT absorption spectra with a change in pH was noted. A necessary working formula for the second method was derived and utilized with the experimental data. The pKa values obtained by the two methods are well in agreement with each other within the limits of experimental error. To our knowledge, so far, this is the first report on determination of pKa from charge-transfer complex formation in aqueous solution using simple absorption spectroscopy in the UV-vis region. The results obtained were further checked by noting the variation of fluorescence intensity of reserpine upon addition of o-chloranil, acid, and base, and almost complete agreement with the absorption spectrometric result was observed.