Determination of the rate constant of oxygen quenching of the excited states of molecules from the singlet oxygen luminescence

We have pioneered a method of determining the rate constant of quenching of the excited electronic states of molecules by molecular oxygen from measurements of the kinetics of photosensitized luminescence of singlet molecular oxygen (lδg). The method can be used in the case where the lifetime of the excited electronic state in an air-saturated solution is comparable with or larger than the luminescence time of the singlet molecular oxygen in the given solvent. It is shown that this situation is implemented on quenching, by molecular oxygen, of the excited triplet states associated with the biopolymers of tetrapyrrole molecules in aqueous (H2O and D2O) solutions.