Charge-transfer-to-solvent reactions from I(-) to water, methanol, and ethanol studied by time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy of liquids.

The charge-transfer-to-solvent (CTTS) reactions from iodide (I(-)) to H2O, D2O, methanol, and ethanol were studied by time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy of liquid microjets using a magnetic bottle time-of-flight spectrometer with variable pass energy. Photoexcited iodide dissociates into a weak complex (a contact pair) of a solvated electron and an iodine atom in similar reaction times, 0.3 ps in H2O and D2O and 0.5 ps in methanol and ethanol, which are much shorter than their dielectric relaxation times. The results indicate that solvated electrons are formed with minimal solvent reorganization in the long-range solvent polarization field created for I(-). The photoelectron spectra for CTTS in H2O and D2O-measured with higher accuracy than in our previous study [Y. I. Suzuki et al., Chem. Sci. 2, 1094 (2011)]-indicate that internal conversion yields from the photoexcited I(-*) (CTTS) state are less than 10%, while alcohols provide 2-3 times greater yields of internal conversion from I(-*). The overall geminate recombination yields are found to be in the order of H2O > D2O > methanol > ethanol, which is opposite to the order of the mutual diffusion rates of an iodine atom and a solvated electron. This result is consistent with the transition state theory for an adiabatic outer-sphere electron transfer process, which predicts that the recombination reaction rate has a pre-exponential factor inversely proportional to a longitudinal solvent relaxation time.