ABSTRACT
The excited state properties of hydroxyaromatic compounds (phenols, naphthols, etc.) are of interest to a wide audience in chemistry, including those interested in the environmental decomposition of phenols, chemical physicists interested in the very fast dynamics of excited-state proton transfer (ESPT) and excited-state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT), physical chemists interested in photoionization and the photochemical pathways for phenoxyl radical formation, and organic photochemists interested in the mechanisms of phenol and hydroxyarene photochemistry. Due to space limitations, this review is restricted to molecular photochemistry of hydroxyaromatic compounds reported during the last three decades that are of primary interest to organic photochemists. It also includes a brief section on the phenomenon of enhanced acidity of phenols and other hydroxyaromatics because this is central to hydroxyarene photochemistry and forms the basis of much of the mechanistic photochemistry to be discussed later on. Several reviews that offer related coverage to this work have also appeared recently.
