Spectrophotometric study of molecular complex formation between o-chloranil and a series of methylated pyridines.

o-Chloranil has been shown to form 1:1 molecular complexes with pyridine and 2-, 3- and 4-picolines in CCl4 medium. Isosbestic points have been found but charge-transfer bands could not be detected. The formation constants of the complexes exhibit a very good linear free energy relationship from which the Hammett p parameter for the complexation reaction is found to be -3.67.