Cyclic voltammetry of ion transfer across a room temperature ionic liquid membrane supported by a microporous filter

Abstract

Cyclic voltammetry is used to study the transfer of a series of cations and anions across a room-temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) membrane composed of tridodecylmethylammonium cation (TDMA +) and tetrakis(pentafluorophenyl)borate anion (TPFPB −), and supported by a thin (∼112 μm) microporous filter. Essential advantage of the thin membrane system is the substantial reduction of the ohmic potential drop, which is compensated in voltammetric measurements. Reversible partition of TPFPB − allows fixing the potential difference at one membrane interface and polarizing the other membrane interface in a defined way. It is shown that the polarized potential window for the interface between an aqueous electrolyte solution and RTIL attains the value of ca. 0.7 V at the ambient temperature of 25 ± 2 °C. Tetraphenylarsonium tetraphenylborate hypothesis is used for the first time to estimate the standard Gibbs energies of ion transfer from water to RTIL and to establish the scale of the absolute potential differences. A linear Gibbs energy relationship is found for the ion transfer from water to RTIL and o-dichlorobenzene.