Abstract

The applicability of ionic liquids (IL) has been increased during the last years and even new opportunities are becoming a reality, i.e., mixtures of pure IL and inorganic salt as electrolytes for smart electrochemical devices. In this work, the ecotoxicity of two protic ILs (Ethylammonium nitrate and Ethylimidazolium nitrate) and one aprotic IL (butylmethylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoroomethylsulfonyl)imide) doped with the corresponding Lithium salt was tested towards changes on the bioluminescence of the bacteria Aliivibrio fischeri, using the Microtox® standard toxicity test. Half maximal effective concentration (EC50) of these mixtures was determined over three standard periods of time and compared with the corresponding values to pure ILs.

Highlights

  • The applicability of Ionic liquids (ILs) seems never-ending, since they are still not fully studied and mixtures of pure IL and inorganic salt burst in as electrolytes for smart electrochemical devices [1,2]

  • PILs are formed by the transfer of proton from acid to base, and they consist of proton-donor and -acceptor sites which are responsible for building extended three-dimensional hydrogen bond networks as in the case of water and AILs are mainly based on bulky organic cations with long alkyl chain substituents and huge variety of anions (i.e., TFSI, FAP, halides)

  • Some authors [13,14,15] have reported that aromatic cations are more toxic than non-aromatic based ILs; this statement perfectly fits with our results that present the following trend: EAN < < C4C1pyrr TFSI < EIm NO3

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Summary

Introduction

The applicability of Ionic liquids (ILs) seems never-ending, since they are still not fully studied and mixtures of pure IL and inorganic salt burst in as electrolytes for smart electrochemical devices [1,2]. ILs can be divided into two different subclasses depending in their structural characteristics: protic (PILs) and aprotic (AILs) ionic liquids. PILs are formed by the transfer of proton from acid to base, and they consist of proton-donor and -acceptor sites which are responsible for building extended three-dimensional hydrogen bond networks as in the case of water and AILs are mainly based on bulky organic cations (i.e., pyrrolidinium, imidazolium...) with long alkyl chain substituents and huge variety of anions (i.e., TFSI, FAP, halides). Despite having many useful properties (arising from the protic nature) and potential applicability, the literature on PILs is still scarce compared to their AIL [3,4].

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