Easy to scale up synthesis of a high-purity piperidinium based ionic liquid combining both sustainability and cost-effectiveness

Abstract

Ionic liquids have attracted much attention these last years because they have been identified as a new class of media offering interesting opportunities to transfer the traditional chemical processes to new, clean and eco-friendly technologies. But in order for these compounds to achieve their commercial potential, it must be demonstrated that they can be produced in hundreds of kilograms at a time in a benign simple and highly efficient way. However, the main applications in which they are involved require a high dregree of purity. In the context of the circular economy and with the aim of developing a generic, straightforward, economical and eco-friendly method for high-purity piperidinium-based ionic liquids preparation, we investigate here the experimental conditions of determining step of the synthesis i.e. the Menshutkin reaction. This enables use to offer a high-yield and high-quality protocol, that is easy to scale up and that combines sustainability with cost-effectiveness.