Liquid structure of 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium-hexafluorophosphates by wide angle x-ray and neutron scattering and molecular dynamics

A Computational and Spectroscopic Analysis of Solvate Ionic Liquids Containing Anions with Long and Short Perfluorinated Alkyl Chains

Anion-driven, nanoscale polar-apolar structural organization is investigated in a solvate ionic liquid (SIL) setting by comparing sulfonate-based anions with long and short perfluorinated alkyl chains. Representative SILs are created from 1,2-bis(2-methoxyethoxy)ethane ("triglyme" or "G3"), lithium nonafluoro-1-butanesulfonate, and lithium trifluoromethanesulfonate. Molecular dynamics simulations, density functional theory computations, and vibrational spectroscopy provide insight into the overall liquid structure, cation-solvent interactions, and cation-anion association. Significant competition between G3 and anions for cation-binding sites characterizes the G3-LiC4F9SO3 mixtures. Only 50% of coordinating G3 molecules form tetradentate complexes with Li+ in [(G3)1Li][C4F9SO3]. Moreover, the SIL is characterized by extensive amounts of ion pairing. Based on these observations, [(G3)1Li][C4F9SO3] is classified as a "poor" SIL, similar to the analogous [(G3)1Li][CF3SO3] system. Even though the comparable basicity of the CF3SO3- and C4F9SO3- anions leads to similar SIL classifications, the hydrophobic fluorobutyl groups support extensive apolar domain formation. These apolar moieties permeate throughout [(G3)1Li][C4F9SO3] and persist even at relatively low dilution ratios of [(G3)10Li][C4F9SO3]. By way of comparison, the CF3 group is far too short to sustain polar-apolar segregation. This demonstrates how chemically modifying the anions to include hydrophobic groups can impart unique nanoscale organization to a SIL. Moreover, tuning these nano-segregated fluorinated domains could, in principle, control the presence of dimensionally ordered states in these mixtures without changing the coordination of the lithium ions.

The Potential Role of Ionic Liquid as a Multifunctional Dental Biomaterial

In craniofacial research and routine dental clinical procedures, multifunctional materials with antimicrobial properties are in constant demand. Ionic liquids (ILs) are one such multifunctional intelligent material. Over the last three decades, ILs have been explored for different biomedical applications due to their unique physical and chemical properties, high task specificity, and sustainability. Their stable physical and chemical characteristics and extremely low vapor pressure make them suitable for various applications. Their unique properties, such as density, viscosity, and hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity, may provide higher performance as a potential dental material. ILs have functionalities for optimizing dental implants, infiltrate materials, oral hygiene maintenance products, and restorative materials. They also serve as sensors for dental chairside usage to detect oral cancer, periodontal lesions, breath-based sobriety, and dental hard tissue defects. With further optimization, ILs might also make vital contributions to craniofacial regeneration, oral hygiene maintenance, oral disease prevention, and antimicrobial materials. This review explores the different advantages and properties of ILs as possible dental material.

Computational assessment of the crystallization tendency of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ionic liquids

A test set of 20 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ionic liquids, differing in their anions, is subjected to a computational study with an aim to interpret the experimental difficulties related to the preparation of crystalline phases of the selected species. Molecular dynamics simulations of the liquid phases, quantum-chemical symmetry-adapted perturbation theory calculations of the interaction energies within the ion pair, and density functional theory calculations of the cohesive energies of the crystal phases are used in this work to obtain the structural, energetic, and diffusion parameters of the materials. Correlations of fusion temperatures and enthalpies and temperatures of the glass transitions with 15 calculated parameters are investigated in order to interpret the trends of the phase behavior of the selected ionic liquids. Correlations of a fair significance are found between the glass transition temperatures and selected energetic, cohesive, and diffusion-related characteristics of the liquids; however, the correlations of calculated transport and some enthalpic properties are blurred by the limited accuracy of the non-polarizable CL&P force field for predicting these properties. 1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate is found to have an exclusive position among those in the test set due to several outlying characteristics, such as the short contact distance of its counterions in the liquid, high pair interaction energies, and importance of the dispersion interactions for the collective cohesion, impeding its crystallization significantly.

Voronoi Polyhedra as a Tool for the Characterization of Inhomogeneous Distribution in 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium Cation-Based Ionic Liquids

The inhomogeneity distribution in four imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs) containing the 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium (C₄mim) cation, coupled with tetrafluoroborate (BF₄), hexafluorophosphate (PF₆), bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide (TFSA), and trifluoromethanesulfonate (TfO) anions, was characterized using Voronoi polyhedra. For this purpose, molecular dynamic simulations have been performed on the isothermal-isobaric (NpT) ensemble. We checked the ability of the potential models to reproduce the experimental density, heat of vaporization, and transport properties (diffusion and viscosity) of these ionic liquids. The inhomogeneity distribution of ions around the ring, methyl, and butyl chain terminal hydrogen atoms of the C₄mim cation was investigated by means of Voronoi polyhedra analysis. For this purpose, the position of the C₄mim cation was described successively by the ring, methyl, and butyl chain terminal hydrogen atoms, while that of the anions was described by their F or O atom. We calculated the Voronoi polyhedra distributions of the volume, the density, and the asphericity parameters as well as that of the radius of the spherical intermolecular voids. We carried out the analysis in two steps. In the first step, both ions were taken into account. The calculated distributions gave information on the neighboring ions around a reference one. In the second step, to distinguish between like and oppositely charged ions and then to get information on the inhomogeneity distribution of the like ions, we repeated the same calculations on the same sample configurations and removed one of the ions and considered only the other one. Detailed analysis of these distributions has revealed that the ring hydrogen atoms are mainly solvated by the anions, while the methyl and butyl terminal H atoms are surrounded by like atoms. The extent of this inhomogeneity was assessed by calculating the cluster size distribution that shows that the dimers are the most abundant ones.

Dipolar coupling and molecular vibrations in ionic liquids

It is often the case that intense, non-degenerate bands appear asymmetric in transmission IR spectra of ionic liquids, with a high-frequency shoulder adjacent to the dominant band. Moreover, the band shape is temperature dependent with lower temperatures producing greater amounts of asymmetry. The 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethanesulfonate family of ionic liquids provides an excellent illustration of this phenomenon, wherein the νs(SO3) mode of the anion is split into two components whose frequencies change with temperature. In this article, a new theoretical model is derived to explain temperature-dependent trends in the infrared spectra of these materials. According to the model, vibrationally-induced dipole moments couple with one another across the charge-organized liquid structure inherent to ionic liquids to produce transverse optical (TO) and longitudinal optical (LO) phonons. The temperature dependence of the resulting TO-LO band splitting originates from two distinct sources. First, the interaction strength between vibrationally-induced dipole moments depends on the distance separating the ions, which in turn, is directly related to the ionic liquid's density. Second, TO-LO splitting requires a significant amount of angular correlation among the ions to facilitate the propagation of optical phonons. Elevated temperatures produce smaller densities and increased amounts of disorder, both of which lead to decreased amounts of TO-LO splitting. Although the model is developed in the context of ionic liquids, the equations are broadly applicable to other materials that possess long-range structure but are not fully crystalline, such as molten salts, plastic crystalline compounds, glasses, and disordered solids.

Fine probing the effect of replacing [PF6]- with [PF3(C2F5)3]- on the local structure and nanoscale organization of [bmim]+-based ionic liquids using MD simulation

Comparative all-atom molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the microscopic local structure and interionic interactions of two ionic liquids (ILs) composed of the 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium cation, [bmim]+, coupled with the hexafluorophosphate, [PF6]-, or tris(pentafluoroethyl)trifluorophosphate, [FAP]-, anions. Respective distribution functions clearly reveal that the structural correlations between the cation and anion decrease when (i) replacing [PF6]- with [FAP]-, (ii) scaling the partial atomic charges, and (iii) considering the anion's structural flexibility versus rigidity. Replacement of [PF6]- with [FAP]- expands the nonpolar domains totally and causes the decreasing of the three-dimensional polar networks as well as the diminishing of the nano-aggregation of cation side chains. Current simulations show that with increasing the anion size and its charge delocalization, the probability of the in-plane cation-anion conformation, its related hydrogen bond acceptor ability, and the cation-cation π-π interaction decreases in accordance with the fluidity enhancements of the corresponding imidazolium-based IL. Hence, structural findings can explain and justify rationally the origins of the observed trends in the simulated dynamical properties of these ILs in our previous report. A complete understanding of the microscopic structure of ILs is necessary to control the outstanding properties of ILs as designer solvents that will support experimentalists for the best engineering design and a breakthrough efficiency of IL-related processes.

Structural correlations tailor conductive properties in polymerized ionic liquids

In this paper, it was demonstrated that the mobile ion (anion) size and pendant group chemistry affect the packing of the polymer chains and influence conductivity in imidazolium based PolyILs.

Cation influence on heterocyclic ammonium ionic liquids: a molecular dynamics study

Four different ionic liquids (ILs) consisting of the bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide ([NTf₂]⁻) anion, with structurally similar systematically varying cations, are investigated herein through classical molecular dynamics.

Finding the best density functional approximation to describe interaction energies and structures of ionic liquids in molecular dynamics studies

Ionic liquids raise interesting but complicated questions for theoretical investigations due to the fact that a number of different inter-molecular interactions, e.g., hydrogen bonding, long-range Coulomb interactions, and dispersion interactions, need to be described properly. Here, we present a detailed study on the ionic liquids ethylammonium nitrate and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate, in which we compare different dispersion corrected density functional approximations to accurate local coupled cluster data in static calculations on ionic liquid clusters. The efficient new composite method B97-3c is tested and has been implemented in CP2K for future studies. Furthermore, tight-binding based approaches which may be used in large scale simulations are assessed. Subsequently, ab initio as well as classical molecular dynamics simulations are conducted and structural analyses are presented in order to shed light on the different short- and long-range structural patterns depending on the method and the system size considered in the simulation. Our results indicate the presence of strong hydrogen bonds in ionic liquids as well as the aggregation of alkyl side chains due to dispersion interactions.

Effect of molecular solvents of varying polarity on the self-assembly of 1-n-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium octylsulfate ionic liquid

Large-scale molecular dynamics simulations consisting of more than 88,000–106,000 atoms for approximately 250 ns (including equilibration and production) were conducted to assess the effect of polar, nonpolar and amphiphilic molecular solvents on the nanoscale structuring of 1-[Formula: see text]-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium [C[Formula: see text]mim] octylsulfate [C8SO4] ionic liquid (IL). Water [H2O], [Formula: see text]-octane [C8H[Formula: see text]] and 1-octanol [C8H[Formula: see text]OH] are employed as examples of polar, nonpolar, and amphiphilic molecules, respectively. The results indicate that each of these molecular solvents modify the nanosegregation behavior of the ionic liquid in a unique way. Water induces a high order of structuring of the ionic liquid as indicated by extremely high nematic order parameter for the system. In addition, the morphology of the neat ionic liquid is transformed from layer-like to that of bilayer-like in which the polar and nonpolar domains alternate. The presence of water also causes the stretching of the nonpolar domain, thus, increasing its size. At the concentration examined in this work, [Formula: see text]-octane is found to be only partially miscible with the ionic liquid. The polar network is maintained; however, the continuous cationic nonpolar domain is split into multiple domains. [Formula: see text]-octane is accommodated in the ionic liquid nonpolar domain. Similarly, the amphiphilicity of 1-octanol leads to an increase in the number of cationic as well as anionic domains. The overall nonpolar domain length, however, remains nearly identical to that found for the pure ionic liquid. Additional characterization of structural features of the three systems is discussed in terms of one-dimensional number densities, nematic order parameters for the overall systems and their components and structure factors.

Mesoscopic organization in ionic liquids

We discuss some published results and provide new observations concerning the high level of structural complexity that lies behind the nanoscale correlations in ionic liquids (ILs) and their mixtures with molecular liquids. It turns out that this organization is a consequence of the hierarchical construction on both spatial (from ångström to several nanometer) and temporal (from fraction of picosecond to hundreds of nanosecond) scales, which requires joint use of experimental and computational tools.

Accurate prediction of energetic properties of ionic liquid clusters using a fragment-based quantum mechanical method

Accurate prediction of physicochemical properties of ionic liquids (ILs) is of great significance to understand and design novel ILs with unique properties.

Neutron Scattering of Aromatic and Aliphatic Liquids

Organic solvents, such as cyclohexane, cyclohexene, methylcyclohexane, benzene and toluene, are widely used as both reagents and solvents in industrial processes. Despite the ubiquity of these liquids, the local structures that govern the chemical properties have not been studied extensively. Herein, we report neutron diffraction measurements on liquid cyclohexane, cyclohexene, methylcyclohexane, benzene and toluene at 298 K to obtain a detailed description of the local structure in these compounds. The radial distribution functions of the centres of the molecules, as well as the partial distribution functions for the double bond for cyclohexene and methyl group for methylcyclohexane and toluene have been calculated. Additionally, probability density functions and angular radial distribution functions were extracted to provide a full description of the local structure within the chosen liquids. Structural motifs are discussed and compared for all liquids, referring specifically to the functional group and aromaticity present in the different liquids.

Quasielastic neutron scattering studies on glass-forming ionic liquids with imidazolium cations

Relaxation processes for imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs) were investigated by means of an incoherent quasielastic neutron scattering technique. In order to clarify the cation and anion effects on the relaxation processes, ten samples were measured. For all of the samples, we found three relaxations at around 1 ps, 10 ps, and 100 ps-10 ns, each corresponding to the alkyl reorientation, the relaxation related to the imidazolium ring, and the ionic diffusion. The activation energy (Ea) for the alkyl relaxation is insensitive to both anion and alkyl chain lengths. On the other hand, for the imidazolium relaxation and the ionic diffusion processes, Ea increases as the anion size decreases but is almost independent of the alkyl chain length. This indicates that the ionic diffusion and imidazolium relaxation are governed by the Coulombic interaction between the core parts of the cations (imidazolium ring) and the anions. This is consistent with the fact that the imidazolium-based ILs have nanometer scale structures consisting of ionic and neutral (alkyl chain) domains. It is also found that there is a clear correlation between the ionic diffusion and viscosity, indicating that the ionic diffusion is mainly associated with the glass transition which is one of the characteristics of imidazolium-based ILs.

Direct Comparison of Atomistic Molecular Dynamics Simulations and X-ray Scattering of Polymerized Ionic Liquids

The design of solid-state electrolytes for electrochemical applications that utilize polymerized ionic liquids (polyILs) would greatly benefit from a molecular-level understanding of structure-function relationships. We herein use atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the structural properties of a homologous series of poly(n-alkyl-vinylimidzolium bistrifluoromethylsulfonylimide) poly(nVim Tf2N) and present the first direct comparison of the structure factors obtained from X-ray scattering and simulations. Excellent agreement is found in terms of peak position and shape. The backbone-to-backbone correlation length increases at a rate of 1 Å/CH₂. The longer alkyl chains lead to the longer backbone-to-backbone separation and the larger nonpolar nanodomains. This quantitative comparison of atomistic simulations to X-ray scattering will lead to a fundamental understanding in structure and morphology of polyILs and pave a path forward toward the rational design of future polyILs for electrochemical devices.

Thermodynamic Properties of Selected Homologous Series of Ionic Liquids Calculated Using Molecular Dynamics

This work presents a molecular dynamics simulation study concerning the thermodynamic data of ionic liquids (ILs) including phase change enthalpies, liquid phase densities, radial and spatial distribution functions, and diffusive properties. Three homologous series of ILs were selected for this study, namely, 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborates, hexafluorophosphates, and 1,1,2,2-tetrafluoroethanesulfonates, so that properties of 36 ILs are calculated in total. The trends of calculated properties are compared to available experimental data and thoroughly discussed in context of the homologous series. The calculated trends of the vaporization enthalpies within the series are supported by analyzing the structural properties of the ILs. An excellent agreement of calculated structural properties (liquid phase density) with the experimental counterparts is reached. The calculated enthalpic properties are overestimated considerably; thus, further development of the force fields for ILs is required.

Direct calculation of the X-ray structure factor of ionic liquids

A conceptually simple and computationally efficient direct method to calculate the total X-ray structure factor of ionic liquids from molecular simulations is advocated to be complementary to the popular Fourier transform (FT) method.

Probing the interactions of structurally similar but chemically distinguishable organic solutes with 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium alkyl sulfate (alkyl = ethyl, hexyl and octyl) ionic liquids through fluorescence, NMR and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) studies

Structurally similar but chemically distinguishable solutes provide idea about intermolecular interactions in ionic liquids.

Triphilic Ionic-Liquid Mixtures: Fluorinated and Non-fluorinated Aprotic Ionic-Liquid Mixtures

We present here the possibility of forming triphilic mixtures from alkyl- and fluoroalkylimidazolium ionic liquids, thus, macroscopically homogeneous mixtures for which instead of the often observed two domains-polar and nonpolar-three stable microphases are present: polar, lipophilic, and fluorous ones. The fluorinated side chains of the cations indeed self-associate and form domains that are segregated from those of the polar and alkyl domains. To enable miscibility, despite the generally preferred macroscopic separation between fluorous and alkyl moieties, the importance of strong hydrogen bonding is shown. As the long-range structure in the alkyl and fluoroalkyl domains is dependent on the composition of the liquid, we propose that the heterogeneous, triphilic structure can be easily tuned by the molar ratio of the components. We believe that further development may allow the design of switchable, smart liquids that change their properties in a predictable way according to their composition or even their environment.