Excited-state hydrogen bonding and deprotonation of esculetin in solution: a DFT/TDDFT study

The combined density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) method was used to study the electronic spectral properties of different deprotonated forms of esculetin. By comparing the experimental absorption and fluorescence bands with the calculated electronic spectra, it is evidently demonstrated that the minor absorption and fluorescence bands observed at slightly longer wavelengths than the principal bands in experiments are predominantly from the de-H3 form of the esculetin monomer. Furthermore, we clarified the relationship between electronic spectral shifts and electronic excited-state intramolecular hydrogen bonding changes: the strengthening of intramolecular hydrogen bond can induce an electronic spectral blueshift while the intramolecular hydrogen bond weakening can result in an electronic spectral redshift.