Transport properties of protic ionic liquids,pure and in aqueous solutions: Effects of the anion and cation structure

Ionic conductivities of twelve protic ionic liquids (PILs) and their mixtures with water over the whole composition range are reported at 298.15 K and atmospheric pressure. The selected PILs are the pyrrolidinium-based PILs containing nitrate, acetate or formate anions; the formate-based PILs containing diisopropylethylammonium, amilaminium, quinolinium, lutidinium or collidinium cations; and the pyrrolidinium alkylcarboxylates, [Pyrr][C_nH_2n+1COO] with n = 5–8. This study was performed in order to investigate the influence of molecular structures of the ions on the ionic conductivities in aqueous solutions. The ionic conductivities of the aqueous solutions are 2–30 times higher than the conductivities of pure PILs. The maximum in conductivity varies from ww=0.41 ??to ??0.74$w_w=0.41\text{\hspace{0.17em}??}\text{to}\text{\hspace{0.17em}??}0.74$ and is related to the nature of cations and anions. The molar conductance and the molar conductance at infinite dilution for (PIL + water) solutions are then determined. Self-diffusion coefficients of the twelve protic ionic liquids in water at infinite dilution and at 298.15 K are calculated by using the Nernst–Haskell, the original and the modified Wilke–Chang equations. These calculations show that similar values are obtained using the modified Wilke–Chang and the Nernst–Haskell equations. Finally, the effective hydrodynamic (or Stokes) radius of the PILs was determined by using the Stokes–Einstein equation. A linear relationship was established in order to predict this radius as a function of the anion alkyl chain length in the case of the pyrrolidinium alkylcarboxylates PILs.     

Self‐diffusion and interactions in mixtures of imidazolium bis(mandelato)borate ionic liquids with polyethylene glycol: 1H NMR study

We used ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance pulsed‐field gradient to study the self‐diffusion of polyethylene glycol (PEG) and ions in a mixture of PEG and imidazolium bis(mandelato)borate ionic liquids (ILs) at IL concentrations from 0 to 10 wt% and temperatures from 295 to 370 K. PEG behaves as a solvent for these ILs, allowing observation of separate lines in ¹H NMR spectra assigned to the cation and anion as well as to PEG. The diffusion coefficients of PEG, as well as the imidazolium cation and bis(mandelato)borate (BMB) anion, differ under all experimental conditions tested. This demonstrates that the IL in the mixture is present in at least a partially dissociated state, while the lifetimes of the associated states of the ions and ions with PEG are less than ~30 ms. Generally, increasing the concentration of the IL leads to a decrease in the diffusion coefficients of PEG and both ions. The diffusion coefficient of the anion is less than that of the cation; the molecular mass dependence of diffusion of ions can be described by the Stokes–Einstein model. NMR chemical shift alteration analysis showed that the presence of PEG changes mainly the chemical shifts of protons belonging to imidazole ring of the cation, while chemical shifts of protons of anions and PEG remain unchanged. This demonstrated that the imidazolium cation interacts mainly with PEG, which most probably occurs through the oxygen of PEG and the imidazole ring. The BMB anion does not strongly interact with PEG, but it may be indirectly affected by PEG through interaction with the cation, which directly interacts with PEG. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.