Ionic liquids exhibit a remarkably diverse interfacial chemistry. Recent theoretical and experimental results show that conventional double layers do not form on metal electrodes in ionic liquid systems, rather a multilayer morphology is present. The number of layers and the strength of adsorption are strongly dependent on ionic liquid chemical species, solutes and applied electrode potential. ...

The application of ionic liquids as environmentally benign reaction solvents for synthesis and catalysis has received extensive recent attention. In this regard we have developed ionic liquids based on the cheap and readily available components choline chloride (ChCl; HOCH2CH2N(Me)3?Cl) and zinc chloride as alternatives to the more commonly employed alkyl imidazolium-aluminium chloride mixtures...

The development of direct methanol fuel cells required the attention to the electrolyte. A good electrolyte should not only be ionic conductive but also be crossover resistant. Ionic liquids could be a promising electrolyte for fuel cells. Monitoring methanol was critical in several locations in a direct methanol fuel cell. Conductivity could be used to monitor the methanol content in ionic liq...

In this study, the use of ionic liquids as additives in the separation of 2-chlorophenol and 2,4,6-trichlorophenol in reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography is reported. The ionic liquids used were 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium methylsulfate ([EMIm][MS]), and 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium me...

Cohesion energies determine the phase behavior of materials. The understanding of interaction energies is in particular interesting for ionic liquids. Here we show experimentally that, in accord with theoretical work, the intermolecular cation-anion interactions in ionic liquids can be detected by far FTIR spectroscopy. The measured vibrational bands of aprotic and protic ionic liquids in the l...

We designed a coarse-grained model for aromatic ionic liquids [CnMIM [Tf2N −] with cations containing different alkyl groups. Within the framework of correlation-corrected density functional theory, the interfacial structure of studied ionic liquids are compared over a range of surface charge densities, alkyl chain lengths and surface geometries. The nonpolar hydrocarbon chains on cation tend t...

Current research on room-temperature ionic liquids as lubricants is described. Ionic liquids possess excellent properties such as non-volatility, non-flammability, and thermo-oxidative stability. The potential use of ionic liquids as lubricants was first proposed in 2001 and approximately 70 articles pertaining to fundamental research on ionic liquids have been published through May 2009. A lar...

Paramagnetic ionic liquids (PILs) provide new capabilities to measurements of density using magnetic levitation (MagLev). In a typical measurement, a diamagnetic object of unknown density is placed in a container containing a PIL. The container is placed between two magnets (typically NdFeB, oriented with like poles facing). The density of the diamagnetic object can be determined by measuring i...

The challenge in preparation of ionic liquids containing a strong alkaline anion is to identify a suitable cation which can tolerate the harsh conditions induced by the anion. In this study, a commercial quaternary ammonium compound (quat) benzalkonium [ADBA] (alkyldimethylbenzylammonium) was used as a cation in the synthesis of different alkaline ionic liquids. In fact, the precursor, benzalko...

Ionic liquid surfaces can become electrically charged during X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy experiments, due to the flux of photoelectrons leaving the surface. This causes a shift in the measured binding energies of X-ray photoelectron peaks that depends on the magnitude of the surface charging. Consequently, a charge correction method is required for ionic liquids. Here we demonstrate the na...