Excited State Dynamics of Curcumin and Solvent Hydrogen Bonding

Curcumin is a natural product with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral and antifungal functions. As it is known that the excited state intramolecular hydrogen transfer of curcumin are related to its medicinal antioxidant mechanism, we investigated its excited state dynamics by using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy in an effort to understand the molecule’s therapeutic effect in terms of its photophysics and photochemistry. We found that stronger intermolecular hydrogen bonding with solvents weakens the intramolecular hydrogen bonding and decelerates the dynamical process of the enolic hydrogen. Exceptions are found in methanol and ethylene glycol due to their nature as simultaneous hydrogen bonding donor-acceptor and high viscosity solvent, respectively.