Preferential Solvation of a Highly Medium Responsive Pentacyanoferrate(II) Complex in Binary Solvent Mixtures: Understanding the Role of Dielectric Enrichment and the Specificity of Solute-Solvent Interactions

In this work, the preferential solvation of an intensely, solvatochromic ferrocyanide(II) dye involving a 4,4'-bipyridine-based ligand was examined in various binary solvent mixtures. Its solvatochromic behavior was rationalized in terms of specific and nonspecific solute-solvent interactions. An exceptional case of solvatochromic inversion was observed when going from alcohol/water to amide/water mixtures. These effects were quantified using Onsager's solvent polarity function. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the solvatochromism of the dye was determined using various solvatochromic parameters such as pi* expressing the dipolarity/polarizability of solvents and alpha expressing the hydrogen-bond-donor acidity of solvents. This analysis was useful for the rationalization of the selective solvation phenomena occurring in the three types of alcohol/water and amide/water mixtures studied. Furthermore, two preferential solvation models were employed for the interpretation of the experimental spectral results in binary solvent mixtures, namely, the model of Suppan on dielectric enrichment [J. Chem. Soc. Faraday Trans. 1 1987, 83, 495-509] and the model of Bosch, Roses, and co-workers [J. Chem. Soc., Perkin Trans. 2, 1995, 8, 1607-1615]. The first model successfully predicted the charge transfer energies of the dye in formamide/water and N-methylformamide/water mixtures, but in the case of MeOH/water mixtures, the prediction was less accurate because of the significant contribution of specific solute-solvent interactions in that case. The second model gave more insights for both specific solute-solvent as well as solvent- solvent interactions in the cybotactic region. The role of dielectric enrichment and specific interactions was discussed based on the findings.