Assessing the roles of the constituents of ionic liquids in dynamic solvation: Comparison of an ionic liquid in micellar and bulk form.

Dynamic solvation of the dye, coumarin 153, is compared in an ionic liquid that forms micelles in water against the bulk solvent. This provides the unprecedented opportunity of investigating the behavior of the ionic liquid in two globally different configurations. It is proposed that the imidazolium moiety is in both cases responsible for the majority of the solvation, which manifests itself in the first 100 ps. Exploiting the use of ionic liquids capable of accommodating specific structures thus provides a deeper insight into how solutes interact with these fascinating and interesting solvents (at least those that are imidazolium based) that are gaining ever increasing interest in the scientific community.