Stable poly (ionic liquids) with unique cross‐linked mesoporous‐macroporous structure as efficient catalyst for alkylation of o ‐xylene and styrene

Application of functional metal anionic Lewis acid ionic liquids in the alkylation of chlorobenzene/SOCl2

4,4'-Dichlorodiphenyl sulfoxide is the main raw material for the manufacture of polysulfone, polyether sulfone and other engineering plastics. It is also an intermediate for medicines, dyes and pesticides, which has been widely utilized in engineering plastics, fine chemicals and other fields. The alkylation of chlorobenzene with thionyl chloride can give 4,4'-dichlorodiphenyl sulfoxide as a product using Lewis acidic ionic liquids. In this work, metal-based methylimidazolium ionic liquids were synthesized, which were found to be efficient catalysts for alkylation reactions. The molar ratio of different metal chlorides to 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazole chloride and the influence of different metal chlorine additives on the catalytic Lewis acid center were investigated. The fissionable species of AlCl₃ in ionic liquids will enhance the acidity of ionic liquids and, thus, promote the catalytic performance of ionic liquids. Under the optimized reaction conditions, the conversion rate of excess chlorobenzene was 45.3% and the selectivity of 4,4'-dichlorodiphenyl sulfoxide was 31.9%.

Constructing High-Recognition Protein-Imprinted Materials Using "Specially Designed" Block Macromolecular Chains as Functional Monomers and Crosslinkers

The use of a macromolecularly functional monomer and crosslinker (MFM) to stabilize and imprint a template protein is a new method to construct high-recognition protein-imprinted materials. In this study, for the first time, a "specially designed" block MFM with both "functional capability" and "crosslinking capability" segments was synthesized via reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization and used to fabricate bovine serum albumin (BSA)-imprinted microspheres (SiO₂@MPS@MIPs-MFM) by the surface imprinting strategy. Results from circular dichroic spectrum experiments reflected that the block MFM could maintain the natural form of BSA, whereas its corresponding and equivalent micromolecularly functional monomer (MIM) seriously destroyed the secondary structure of proteins. Batch rebinding experiments showed that the maximum adsorption capacity and imprinting factor of SiO₂@MPS@MIPs-MFM reached 314.9 mg g^-1 and 4.02, which were significantly superior to that of MIM-based imprinted materials. In addition, since the crosslinking capability segments in block MFM involved zwitterionic functional groups with a protein-repelling effect, SiO₂@MPS@MIPs-MFM showed better specific rebinding ability than the imprinted material prepared by MFM without this component. Besides, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy images showed that the shell thickness of SiO₂@MPS@MIPs-MFM was approximately 15 nm, and such a thin imprinted layer ensured its rapid adsorption equilibrium (120 min). As a result, SiO₂@MPS@MIPs-MFM revealed fantastic selectivity and recognition ability in a mixed protein solution and could efficiently extract BSA from biological samples of bovine calf serum. The proposal of block MFM enriched the options and designability of monomers in protein imprinting technology, thereby laying a foundation for developing high-performance protein-imprinted materials.

Heterogeneous Catalysis with the Participation of Ionic Liquids

This mini-review briefly describes the recent progress in the design and development of catalysts based on the presence of ionic liquids. In particular, the focus was on heterogeneous systems (supported ionic liquid (IL) phase catalysts (SILPC), solid catalysts with ILs (SCILL), porous liquids), which due to the low amounts of ionic liquids needed for their production, eliminate basic problems observed in the case of the employment of ionic liquids in homogeneous systems, such as high price, high viscosity, and efficient isolation from post-reaction mixtures.