The microstructure of aqueous CuCl2 has been studied through lots of technologies for many years; however, it remains a controversial subject. In this study, a new spectroscopic method has been proposed to analyze the UV-visible spectra of thin fihn of CuCl2/H2O solutions at different concentrations. This method is the combination of ratio spectra, difference spectra and second order difference spectra. By using this method, two new bands at -230 and -380 nm are obviously observed. The bands are assigned as the contacted ion pairs [CuCl3（H2O）n]- or [CuCl4（H2O）n]2-, which demonstrates that ion pairs exist in the CuCl2/H2O solution. Such finding agrees with the recent theoretical spectra obtained by time-dependent density functional theory. Furthermore, the populations of the contacted ion pairs are discussed. This study not only offers the direct spectroscopic evidence of [CuCl3（H2O）n]- or [CuCl4（H2O）n]2- in aqueous CuCl2, but also suggests that the spec- troscopic analysis method is powerful to extract the weak bands in a strong overlapping spectrum.
