On the molecular conformation of bisaromatic systems the case of 2-phenyl-2H-benzotriazoles

As shown in this work, the effectiveness of the ISC process in these compounds is markedly dependent on the twisting angle, θ, of the structure; accordingly, ISC occurs to a negligible extent in a planar compound such as 2-phenyl-2H-benzotriazole, where θ = 0°. This evidence supports the assumption that planar molecular forms of the TIN-P photoprotectors are more photostable than non-planar ones due to the non effective generation via ISC of their triplet states.