Abstract—–Triplet states of several large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons together with their lifetimes have been determined both in fluid solution and in the solid state using a spectrophoto‐metric technique.Excited states and lifetimes of some solid charge transfer complexes between the hydrocarbons and chloranil have been examined.The assignment of the1Bbstates of some of the hydrocarbons have been made from the energies of the triplet s