State of hydrophobic and hydrophilic ionic liquids in aqueous solutions: are the ions fully dissociated?

Establishment and molecular modeling study of maltodextrin-based synergistic enantioseparation systems with two new hydroxy acid chiral ionic liquids as additives in capillary electrophoresis

Discovering more superior performance of ionic liquids for the separation science has triggered increasing interest. In this work, two new Hydroxy acid-based chiral ionic liquids (CILs) (tertramethylammonium-d-pantothenate (TMA-d-PAN), tertramethylammonium-d-quinate (TMA-d-QUI)) were designed and first used as additives to establish the maltodextrin-based synergistic systems for enantioseparation in capillary electrophoresis (CE). Compared to traditional single maltodextrin chiral separation system, significantly improved separations of all tested drugs in the CIL/Maltodextrin synergistic systems were obtained. Some parameters (CIL concentration, maltodextrin concentration, buffer pH, and applied voltage) in the TMA-d-PAN/Maltodextrin synergistic system have been examined and optimized for analytes. The molecular docking software AutoDock was applied to simulate the recognition process and surmise feasible resolution mechanism in the Maltodextrin/CILs synergistic systems, which has certain guiding value.

Synergistic effects of polymyxin and ionic liquids on lipid vesicle membrane stability and aggregation

Ionic liquids (ILs) have been investigated for potential antibacterial and antibiotic applications due to their ability to destabilize and permeabilize the lipid bilayers in cell membranes. Bacterial assays have shown that combining ILs with antibiotics can provide a synergistic enhancement of their antibacterial activities. We have characterized the mechanism by which the conventional ILs 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (BMICl) and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (BMIBF₄) enhance the lipid membrane permeabilization of the well-known antibiotic polymyxin B (PMB). We studied the sizes and membrane permeabilities of multilamellar and unilamellar lipid bilayer vesicles in the presence of ILs alone in aqueous solution, PMB alone, and ILs combined together with PMB. Light scattering-based experiments show that vesicle sizes dramatically increase when ILs are combined with PMB, which suggests that the materials combine to synergistically enhance lipid membrane disruption leading to vesicle aggregation. Lipid bilayer leakage experiments using tris (2,2'-bipyridyl) ruthenium (II) (Ru(bpy)₃²⁺) trapped in lipid vesicles, in which the trapped Ru(bpy)₃²⁺ fluorescence lifetime increases when it leaks out of the vesicle, show that combining BMIBF₄ and PMB together permeabilize the membrane significantly more than with PMB or the IL alone. This demonstrates that ILs can assist in antibiotic permeabilization of lipid bilayers which could explain the increased antibiotic activities in the presence of ILs in solution.

Solvent Polarity Governs Ion Interactions and Transport in a Solvated Room-Temperature Ionic Liquid

We explore the influence of the solvent dipole moment on cation-anion interactions and transport in 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl), [BMIM⁺][Tf2N^-]. Free energy profiles derived from atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations show a correlation of the cation-anion separation and the equilibrium depth of the potential of mean force with the dipole moment of the solvent. Correlations of the ion diffusivity with the dipole moment and the concentration of the solvent were further demonstrated by classical MD simulations. Quasi-elastic neutron scattering experiments with deuterated solvents reveal a complex picture of nanophase separation into the ionic liquid-rich and solvent-rich phases. The experiment corroborates the trend of concentration- and dipole moment-dependent enhancement of ion mobility by the solvent, as suggested by the simulations. Despite the considerable structural complexity of ionic liquid-solvent mixtures, we can rationalize and generalize the trends governing ionic transport in these complex electrolytes.

Evaluation of the grand-canonical partition function using expanded Wang-Landau simulations. IV. Performance of many-body force fields and tight-binding schemes for the fluid phases of silicon

We extend Expanded Wang-Landau (EWL) simulations beyond classical systems and develop the EWL method for systems modeled with a tight-binding Hamiltonian. We then apply the method to determine the partition function and thus all thermodynamic properties, including the Gibbs free energy and entropy, of the fluid phases of Si. We compare the results from quantum many-body (QMB) tight binding models, which explicitly calculate the overlap between the atomic orbitals of neighboring atoms, to those obtained with classical many-body (CMB) force fields, which allow to recover the tetrahedral organization in condensed phases of Si through, e.g., a repulsive 3-body term that favors the ideal tetrahedral angle. Along the vapor-liquid coexistence, between 3000 K and 6000 K, the densities for the two coexisting phases are found to vary significantly (by 5 orders of magnitude for the vapor and by up to 25% for the liquid) and to provide a stringent test of the models. Transitions from vapor to liquid are predicted to occur for chemical potentials that are 10%-15% higher for CMB models than for QMB models, and a ranking of the force fields is provided by comparing the predictions for the vapor pressure to the experimental data. QMB models also reveal the formation of a gap in the electronic density of states of the coexisting liquid at high temperatures. Subjecting Si to a nanoscopic confinement has a dramatic effect on the phase diagram with, e.g. at 6000 K, a decrease in liquid densities by about 50% for both CMB and QMB models and an increase in vapor densities between 90% (CMB) and 170% (QMB). The results presented here provide a full picture of the impact of the strategy (CMB or QMB) chosen to model many-body effects on the thermodynamic properties of the fluid phases of Si.

Effectiveness and potential of straw- and wood-based biochars for adsorption of imidazolium-type ionic liquids

The growing industrial application of imidazolium-type ionic liquids (ITILs) is likely to result in their release to the environment. Water-soluble ITILs are difficult to remove from wastewaters using traditional adsorbents. In this work, we developed different biochars derived from straw and wood (named as SBB and WBB, respectively) to improve the adsorption effectiveness for removal of ITILs from wastewaters. SBB had high O/C element ratio (0.143), while WBB had high ratio of Vmicro/Vtotal (61.5%) compared with commercial activated carbon (AC). Both of them showed greater adsorption of ITILs than AC with different adsorption mechanisms. FTIR spectra revealed that electrostatic interactions were the dominant driving force in SBB adsorption, while high micropore volume promoted adsorption in WBB. The adsorption of [C2mim][BF4] on SBB and WBB was strongly enhanced by trivalent PO4(3-) anions, suggesting that PO4(3-) anions could be used as promoter to increase the removal efficiency of ITILs from wastewater. Using HCl solution (pH=0.5) as regenerant, SBB and WBB were regenerated with nearly 100% recovery of adsorption capacity over ten consecutive adsorption-desorption cycles. Straw-based biochar and wood-based biochar are efficient sorbents for removal of water-soluble ionic liquids from aqueous solutions.

Effect of water on the structure of a prototype ionic liquid

The influence of water on the structure of a prototype ionic liquid (IL) 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (C₈mimBF₄) is examined in the IL-rich regime using high-energy X-ray diffraction (HEXRD) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.

Mobility and association of ions in aqueous solutions: the case of imidazolium based ionic liquids

Combining MD simulations and RISM calculations with experiments, we demonstrated that the interionic interactions of investigated ILs as model 1,1 electrolytes in water solutions are weak but evidently dependent on the molecular structure.

Dilute or Concentrated Electrolyte Solutions? Insight from Ionic Liquid/Water Electrolytes

When room-temperature ionic liquids (IL) are used as an electrolyte, their transport behaviors are still under heavy debate due to their complicated ion-associations. In this article, we conducted molecular dynamics simulations to study the molecular scale ion associations from the very dilute 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide/water solution to the pure IL. It revealed that ions are localized in a multicoordinated ion cage structure with nanoseconds in concentrated IL solutions. Dynamics analyses indicate that the transport of this solution can be depicted by the Debye-Hückel model only in dilute IL/water electrolyte. The velocity and rotational correlation functions showed that the lifetime of translational and rotational motions are at the level of picoseconds and nanoseconds, respectively, because of the ion cage effect. The lifetime of ion association demonstrated that the recombination of association ions was prevalent in IL solutions. It means that the dipolar or stable contact ion-pairs model may not be suitable for depicting the IL transport.

Effect of Cation on Physical Properties and CO2 Solubility for Phosphonium-Based Ionic Liquids with 2-Cyanopyrrolide Anions

A series of tetraalkylphosphonium 2-cyanopyrrolide ([Pnnnn][2-CNPyr]) ionic liquids (ILs) were prepared to investigate the effect of cation size on physical properties and CO2 solubility. Each IL was synthesized in our laboratory and characterized by NMR spectroscopy. Their physical properties, including density, viscosity, and ionic conductivity, were determined as a function of temperature and fit to empirical equations. The density gradually increased with decreasing cation size, while the viscosity decreased noticeably. In addition, the [Pnnnn][2-CNPyr] ILs with large cations exhibited relatively low degrees of ionicity based on analysis of the Walden plots. This implies the presence of extensive ion pairing or formation of aggregates resulting from van der Waals interactions between the long hydrocarbon substituents. The CO2 solubility in each IL was measured at 22 °C using a volumetric method. While the anion is typically known to be predominantly responsible for the CO2 capture reaction, the [Pnnnn][2-CNPyr] ILs with shorter alkyl chains on the cations exhibited slightly stronger CO2 binding ability than the ILs with longer alkyl chains. We attribute this to the difference in entropy of reaction, as well as the variation in the relative degree of ionicity.

Amphiphilic interactions of ionic liquids with lipid biomembranes: a molecular simulation study

Current bottlenecks in the large-scale commercial use of many ionic liquids (ILs) include their high costs, low biodegradability, and often unknown toxicities. As a proactive effort to better understand the molecular mechanisms of ionic liquid toxicities, the work herein presents a comprehensive molecular simulation study on the interactions of 1-n-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium-based ILs with a phosphatidylcholine (PC) lipid bilayer. We explore the effects of increasing alkyl chain length (n = 4, 8, and 12) in the cation and anion hydrophobicity on the interactions with the lipid bilayer. Bulk atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations performed at millimolar (mM) IL concentrations show spontaneous insertion of cations into the lipid bilayer regardless of the alkyl chain length and a favorable orientational preference once a cation is inserted. Cations also exhibit the ability to "flip" inside the lipid bilayer (as is common for amphiphiles) if partially inserted with an unfavorable orientation. Moreover, structural analysis of the lipid bilayer show that cationic insertion induces roughening of the bilayer surface, which may be a precursor to bilayer disruption. To overcome the limitation in the timescale of our simulations, free energies for a single IL cation and anion insertion have been determined based on potential of mean force calculations. These results show a decrease in free energy in response to both short and long alkyl chain IL cation insertion, and likewise for a single hydrophobic anion insertion, but an increase in free energy for the insertion of a hydrophilic chloride anion. Both bulk MD simulations and free energy calculations suggest that toxicity mechanisms toward biological systems are likely caused by ILs behaving as ionic surfactants. [Yoo et al., Soft Matter, 2014].