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Updated: Dec 20, 2025

Determination of the Gas-phase Acidities of Oligopeptides
Published on: June 24, 2013
How does excited-state antiaromaticity affect the acidity strengths of photoacids?
Zhili Wen1, Lucas José Karas1, Chia-Hua Wu1
1Department of Chemistry, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA. jiwu@central.uh.edu.
Abstract:
Photoacids like substituted naphthalenes (X = OH, NH3+, COOH) are aromatic in the S0 state and antiaromatic in the S1 state. Nucleus independent chemical shifts analyses reveal that deprotonation relieves antiaromaticity in the excited conjugate base, and that the degree of "antiaromaticity relief" explains why some photoacids are stronger than others.
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