Probe Dependent Solvation Dynamics Study in a Microscopically Immiscible Dimethyl Sulfoxide-Glycerol Binary Solvent

Excited state dipole solvation of three coumarin dyes with different hydrophobicities was studied in DMSO-glycerol binary solvent. The solvation times obtained from the three dyes are remarkably different. The highly hydrophilic dye coumarin 343 (C343) exhibits the slowest solvation time (>12 ns) among all the dyes we used. This is in contrast to the most hydrophobic dye coumarin 153 (C153), where the solvated state is reached just within similar to 104 ps. However, the moderately hydrophobic dye coumarin 480 (C480) demonstrates an intermediate (similar to 396 ps) solvation time. Unprecedented slowdown of solvation time of C343 is probably due to the slow diffusion of solvent molecules in the glycerol-rich first solvation shell followed by hydrogen bond rearrangements around the solute dipole. On the other hand, fast solvation of hydrophobic dye C153 is most likely caused by the fast reorganization dynamics of hydrophobic -CH3 groups of DMSO or the carbon backbone of the glycerol molecule around the solute dipole. Interestingly, a remarkable probe dependency in solvation dynamics was not observed in the case of DMSO-water binary solvent or in a neat solvent isopropanol. Probe dependent solvation in a DMSO-glycerol mixture is attributed to the microscopic phase segregation and different locations of coumarin dyes within this binary solvent.