The photochemical reactivity of 6-methoxyquinoline, 6-methoxyquinaldine, and 4,7-dichloroquinoline has been investigated by W spectrophotometry and spectrophotofluorimetry, in liquid solution and on silica-gel thin layers. Ultraviolet irradiation decreases the fluorescence intensity of 6-methoxyquinoline and 6-methoxyquinaldine, with apparent first-order rate constants of photolysis. A highly fluorescent photoproduct is formed upon irradiation of 4,7-dichloroquinoline, and a photochemical scheme is proposed. The effect of solvent composition, pH, and irradiation timeon fluorescence intensity, and the effect of medium on the photochemical enhancement or quenching of fluorescence have been studied for the three compounds. Fluorimetric pKa values are found to be in good agreement with the ground-state dissociation constants. Linear calibration plots are obtained over a concentration range of two to three orders of magnitude. Very low fluorimetric detection limits, at the piconole (or ng) level are determined for the methoxyquinolines. Photochemical-fluorimetry is a useful method for the analysis of 4,7-dichloroquinoline.
INTRODUCTIONBecause of their considerable importance as analytical reagents, especially for the complexation with metal ions, and of their uoefulness in the biomedical field, substituted quinolines have already been assayed by several analytical methods (1-7). The luminescence properties of some quinoline derivatives have been studied extensively in relation with the pH of the medium (8-13), and several, sensitive fluorimetric (4,7), and phosphorimetric procedures (5-7) have been proposed for their quantitative determination. However, in spite of the large interest generated by the excited-state properties of quinolines, very few reports have been published concerning their photochemical behaviour (14,15,28).Recently, in the framework of photochemical analysis studies of organic compounds (16-22), we have shown that antimalarial quinoline derivatives containing an alcoyldiamino side-chain, such as chloroquine, primaquine, and plasmocid, were reactive photochemically, and that the sensitivity of their fluorescence detection could be increased significantly upon ultraviolet irradiation (17-21). Photochemical enhancements Factors were found to range between 1.3 and 19, according to molecular structure of the alcoyldiamino substituted quinolines and to experimental conditions of the photoreaction (18-20).Therefore, it was of interest to study also the photochemical behaviour of the model compounds, i.e. quinolines with methoxy or chloro groups, in the absence of the