Visible light excitation of the ligand-bridged assembly [(bpy)2RuaII(L)RubII(bpy)(OH2)4+] (bpy is 2,2′-bipyridine; L is the bridging ligand, 4-phen-tpy) results in emission from the lowest energy, bridge-based metal-to-ligand charge transfer excited state (L−•)RubIII-OH2 with an excited-state lifetime of 13 ± 1 ns. Near–diffusion-controlled quenching of the emission occurs with added HPO42− and partial quenching by added acetate anion (OAc−) in buffered solutions with pH control. A Stern–Volmer analysis of quenching by OAc− gave a quenching rate constant of kq = 4.1 × 108 M−1⋅s−1 and an estimated pKa* value of ∼5 ± 1 for the [(bpy)2RuaII(L•−)RubIII(bpy)(OH2)4+]* excited state. Following proton loss and rapid excited-state decay to give [(bpy)2RuaII(L)RubII(bpy)(OH)3+] in a H2PO4−/HPO42− buffer, back proton transfer occurs from H2PO4− to give [(bpy)2RuaII(L)Rub(bpy)(OH2)4+] with kPT,2 = 4.4 × 108 M−1⋅s−1. From the intercept of a plot of kobs vs. [H2PO4−], k = 2.1 × 106 s−1 for reprotonation by water providing a dramatic illustration of kinetically limiting, slow proton transfer for acids and bases with pKa values intermediate between pKa(H3O+) = −1.74 and pKa(H2O) = 15.7
