Fluorescence quenching of pyrene monomer and excimer by CH3I Original Research Article

The fluorescence quenching rate constants of pyrene monomer and excimer by CH3I were obtained at several temperatures in methylcyclohexane. Both quenching processes are kinetically controlled, allowing insight on the mechanism of quenching. The rate constants have both temperature-independent and temperature-dependent components. The temperature-independent component for both monomer and excimer fluorescence is consistent with quenching due to enhanced intersystem crossing to a lower energy triplet state. The monomer temperature-dependent component comes from the enhancement of the intersystem crossing to a higher energy triplet state. The thermally activated excimer quenching is associated with the excimer dissociation step to give a pyrene in a second triplet state plus a ground state pyrene molecule.