Abstract
Most of the commonly used Ionic Liquids (ILs) contain bulky organic cations with suitable anions. With our COMPLET (Concept of Melting Point Lowering due to Ethoxylation), we follow a different approach. We use simple, low-toxic, cheap, and commercially available anions of the type Cx(EO)yCH2COO– to liquefy presumably any simple metal ion, independently of its charge. In the simplest case, the cation can be sodium or lithium, but synthesis of Ionic Liquids is also possible with cations of higher valences such as transition or rare earth metals. Anions with longer alkyl chains are surface active and form surface active ionic liquids (SAILs), which combine properties of ionic and nonionic surfactants at room temperature. They show significant structuring even in their pure state, i.e., in the absence of water or any other added solvent. This approach offers new application domains that go far beyond the common real or hypothetical use of classical Ionic Liquids. Possible applications include the separation of rare earth metals, the use as interesting media for metal catalysis, or the synthesis of completely new materials (for example, in analogy to metal organic frameworks).
Highlights
Some years ago, one of the authors of the present paper coauthored a publication entitled The hype with Ionic Liquids as solvents [1]
Ionic Liquids (ILs) with metal cations of different valency, in the second case, surface active ILs based on the COMPLET concept, and a particular case, where a partly protonated IL consists of direct micelles even in its pure state
How to directly incorporate ethylene glycol groups into cationic surfactants to liquefy them with any type of anion, will ethylene glycol groups into cationic surfactants to liquefy them with any type of anion, be subject of several forthcoming papers, e.g., [4]
Summary
One of the authors of the present paper coauthored a publication entitled The hype with Ionic Liquids as solvents [1]. In light of the demands and the quest for new room-temperature liquids and solvents, it seems evident to look for alternative approaches to ILs that avoid the inherent shortcomings, such as laborious synthesis and purification and the limitation that always more or less complex organic cations are required. These facts motivated us to follow a different strategy: instead of lowering the melting points of salts via the bulkiness of the cations with, as a consequence, an increase of the solid-state Gibbs energy due to hindered packing, we lower the Gibbs energy of the liquid state by increasing the entropy of the anions [3]. ILs with metal cations of different valency, in the second case, surface active ILs based on the COMPLET concept, and a particular case, where a partly protonated IL consists of direct micelles even in its pure state
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