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Updated: May 8, 2026

Spatial Separation of Molecular Conformers and Clusters
Published on: January 9, 2014
How many molecular layers of polar solvent molecules control chemistry? The concept of compensating dipoles
Heinz Langhals1, Patricia Braun, Christian Dietl
1Department of Chemistry, LMU University of Munich, Butenandtstrasse 13, 81377 Munich (Germany), Fax: (+49) 89-2180-77640. Langhals@lrz.uni-muenchen.de.
Abstract:
The extension of the solvent influence of the shell into the volume of a polar medium was examined by means of anti-collinear dipoles on the basis of the E(T)(30) solvent polarity scale (i.e., the molar energy of excitation of a pyridinium-N-phenolatebetaine dye; generally: E(T) =28,591 nm kcal mol(-1)/λmax) where no compensation effects were found. As a consequence, solvent polarity effects are concentrated to a very thin layer of a few thousand picometres around the solute where extensions into the bulk solvent become unimportant. A parallelism to the thin surface layer of water to the gas phase is discussed.
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