Monitoring the Microscopic Molecular Mechanisms of Proton Transfer in Acid‐base Reactions in Aqueous Solutions

This article provides a review of the authors’ collaborative work on acid‐base reactions under conditions allowing direct observation of mechanistic details of the proton transfer within reactive complexes of OH groups and the bases RCOO − (R=organic residues) in diffusion‐assisted neutralization reactions by using time‐resolved UV/Vis emission and IR absorption spectroscopy. We discuss the considerable insight gained by these experiments and outline the current status of the field.