Mutual Solubilities of Ammonium-Based Ionic Liquids with Water and with Water/Methanol Mixture

Ordered patterns in electroactive polymer ionic liquid blends: effect of long range interactions

Designing multifunctional soft materials via pattern formation has been a major challenge for scientists and engineers. Soft materials based on polymers are the perfect candidates for designing such materials as they are not only easy to handle, but also offer diverse combinations of mechanical and chemical properties. Here, we present a polymer-based ternary system and reveal, using modelling and simulations, the mechanisms for creating patterned surfaces. Specifically, we consider polymer ionic liquid (PIL) blends and demonstrate that exposure to a uniform electric field results in the formation of ordered patterns through phase separation. Our approach is based on reaction-diffusion phenomena and utilizes Poisson-Boltzmann-Nernst-Planck equations to capture the long-range interactions of ionic liquids in both weak and strong segregation limits. Furthermore, we elucidate that the ordered patterns in our PIL blend can be tuned by changing the direction of the electric field. From the structural characterization point of view, we reveal that the presence of the electric field significantly enhances the domain growth rate and their respective ordering in a remarkable fashion. We believe this non-invasive technique is a significant step towards the development of ordered structures at microscopic length scales and can be utilized for micro-scale fabrication from soft materials.

Mutual Solubilities between Ethylene Glycol and Organic Diluents: Gas Chromatography and NMR

In this work, the mutual solubilities of sets of organic diluents (CHCl₃, C₆H₆, C₂H₄Cl₂, CCl₄, C₆H₁₂, and n-hexane) with the organic compound ethylene glycol are investigated via gas chromatography (GC). The experimental data measured for these binary organic systems are used to adjust the future nonaqueous systems for the solvent extraction of various metals with ligands. The obtained results showed that the solubility of ethylene glycol decreased in the order CHCl₃ > C₆H₆ > C₂H₄Cl₂ > CCl₄(0%) ≈ C₆H₁₂ ≈ n-hexane. On the other hand, the solubility of the tested traditional organic diluents in ethylene glycol decreased in the following order: C₆H₆ > CHCl₃ > C₂H₄Cl₂ > n-hexane > C₆H₁₂ > CCl₄. ¹H NMR was also used as an analytic method in order to compare the obtained results for the samples showing significant solubility only, including an additional study with 1,2- or 1,3-propanediol. The enhanced solubility of the C₆H₆ compound in ethylene glycol was identified here as critical due to the GC technique, which will be without future consequences in chemical technology. Therefore, it was found that the best molecular diluent for the recovery of metals among the tested ones is C₆H₁₂, with a green protocol as the new paradigm, replacing the aqueous phase with another nonaqueous phase, i.e., a second organic diluent.

Supported Ionic Liquid Phase (SILP) Allylic Alkylation of Amines in Continuous Flow

We present the use of Pd-complex-containing supported ionic liquid phases (SILPs) as a novel approach for continuous-flow allylic alkylation of N-nucleophiles. This immobilization strategy gave simple access to air-tolerating catalyst frameworks, providing rapid and convenient access to various achiral and chiral N-allylation products. Under optimized conditions, the flow-reaction could be maintained for 3.5 hours with constant product output; meanwhile, only a marginal 0.7 wt % of ionic liquid leaching and no detectable palladium-complex leaching could be observed.

Mutual solubilities between water and non-aromatic sulfonium-, ammonium- and phosphonium-hydrophobic ionic liquids

Although previous studies attempted to characterize the liquid-liquid phase behaviour between water and ionic liquids (ILs), the impact of non-cyclic cations on the solubilities is poorly studied and yet to be understood. In this work, the mutual solubilities between water and ILs containing the anion bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, [NTf2](-), combined with the cations diethylmethylsulfonium, [S221][NTf2], triethylsulfonium, [S222][NTf2], butyltrimethylammonium, [N4111][NTf2], tributylmethylammonium, [N4441][NTf2], methyltrioctylammonium, [N1888][NTf2], and methyltrioctylphosphonium, [P1888][NTf2], from (288.15 to 318.15) K and at 0.1 MPa, were experimentally measured and further compared with predictions from the COnductor-like Screening MOdel for Real Solvents (COSMO-RS). All the studied phase diagrams display an upper critical solution temperature (UCST). The binary system composed of [P1888][NTf2] exhibits the widest immiscibility gap, followed by [N18888][NTf2], [N4441][NTf2], [S222][NTf2], [N4111][NTf2], and [S221][NTf2]. The COSMO-RS is able to correctly predict the experimental UCST behaviour and the cation impact on the immiscibility regimes observed. Natural Population Analysis (NPA) calculations were additionally performed for the isolated cations in the gas phase indicating that the differences in the water-IL mutual miscibilities might not result only from the hydrophobicity of the cation (derived from the increase of the alkyl chains length) but also from the charge distribution of the central atom and attached methylene groups. This fact explains the enhanced solubility of ammonium-based ILs in water here identified.

Solid–liquid equilibria in systems [Cxmim][Tf2N] with diethylamine

In the present work, the solid–liquid–liquid equilibrium in the binary system of diethylamine (1) and ionic liquid (2) 1-methyl-3-ethylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide and solid–liquid equilibrium in system 1-methyl-3-butylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide was studied. Phase equilibrium was determined experimentally by means of a polythermic method. These data were then used to determine the activity coefficients for both ionic liquids. For the pure diethylamine the enthalpy of fusion was determined by differential scanning calorimetry, because to the best of our knowledge, this data is not yet reported in the open literature, a contrario of pure ionic liquids tested during this work.