Abstract
Aggregation of some cationic dyes leads to the appearance of their metachromatic spectra and/or quenching of their fluorescence. Ethanol and urea destroy metachromasia and enhance the fluorescence of such dyes by disaggregating them, suggesting hydrophobic bonds to be involved in their aggregation as in the formation of soap micelles or globular proteins. The ability of alcohols to disaggregate cationic dyes has been shown to be increased in the series methanol, ethanol, iospropanol and tertiary-butanol which is the order of increasing hydrophobic character of the alcohols themselves. Dimethyl urea is shown to be more effective than urea in destroying the metachromasia of toluidine blue, thus supporting the idea of hydrophobic bond to be involved in dye aggregation. Rhodamine 6 G undergoes quenching of its fluorescence in presence of a suitable polyanion but it is not metachromatic like acridine orange. Since only some specific cationic dyes undergo spectral changes with aggregation such changes seem to be the secondary effects of aggregation.
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Pool Officer, Scientists' Pool, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (India), attached to the Bose Institute.
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Pal, M.K. Effects of differently hydrophobic solvents on the aggregation of cationic dyes as measured by quenching of fluorescence and/or metachromasia of the dyes. Histochemie 5, 24–31 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00307889
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00307889