Ying LIU^1,2, Xiaosen LUO¹, Zhonghua SHEN¹, Jian LU¹ and Xiaowu NI^1,2,*

¹College of Science, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
²Department of Physics, Xuzhou Normal University, Xuzhou 221116, China

(Received December 1, 2005; Accepted April 29, 2006)

It was found that ethanol and water molecules mixed together can form new clusters. Based on the steady state spectral characteristic and the mole ratio method, three possible bonding constants of ethanol–water clusters were deduced. To confirm the structure of these clusters, the fluorescence lifetimes of different emission bands were investigated, and the average lifetime of the entire decay process was found to vary as the volume percent of ethanol changed. Furthermore, the possible bonding constant n of molecular clusters was determined to be 2 based on the time-resolved spectra, and the cluster was concluded to be a chain structure formed by one ethanol molecule and two water molecules with hydrogen bonds.

Key words: fluorescence spectrum, fluorescence lifetime, ethanol–water cluster

^*Corresponding author. E-mail address: nxw@mail.njust.edu.cn