Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Jul 13;14(7):2521-34.
doi: 10.3390/molecules14072521.

Ionic liquids: just Molten salts after all?

Hon Man Yau  1 , Si Jia Chan, Stephen R D George, James M Hook, Anna K Croft, Jason B Harper
Affiliations

Ionic liquids: just Molten salts after all?

Hon Man Yau et al. Molecules. .

Abstract

While there has been much effort in recent years to characterise ionic liquids in terms of parameters that are well described for molecular solvents, using these to explain reaction outcomes remains problematic. Herein we propose that many reaction outcomes in ionic liquids may be explained by considering the electrostatic interactions present in the solution; that is, by recognising that ionic liquids are salts. This is supported by evidence in the literature, along with studies presented here.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Scheme 1
Scheme 1
Nucleophilic substitution of the chloride 1 to give the ether 2, carried out in a mixture of alcohol and ionic liquid.
Scheme 2
Scheme 2
Menschutkin reaction of the benzyl bromide 3 with pyridine.
Scheme 3
Scheme 3
Acid-catalysed hydrolysis of benzaldehyde dimethyl acetal 5.
Scheme 4
Scheme 4
Nitrile oxide cycloaddition of benzonitrile oxide 7 to ethyl trans-cinnamate 8 to give the isoxazoles 9a and 9b.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Rogers R.D., Seddon K.R. Ionic Liquids - Solvents of the Future? Science. 2003;302:792–793. doi: 10.1126/science.1090313. - DOI - PubMed
    1. El Abedin S.Z., Endres F. Ionic Liquids: The Link to High-Temperature Molten Salts? Acc. Chem. Res. 2007;40:1106–1113. doi: 10.1021/ar700049w. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hussey C.L. Room temperature haloaluminate ionic liquids. Novel solvents for transition metal solution chemistry. Pure Appl. Chem. 1988;60:1763–1772. doi: 10.1351/pac198860121763. - DOI
    1. Dubois R.H., Zaworotko M.J., White P.S. Complex hydrogen-bonded cations. X-ray crystal structure of [(C6H5CH2)NH3)4Cl][AlCl4]3 and its relevance to the structure of basic chloroaluminate room-temperature melts. Inorg. Chem. 1989;28:2019–2020. doi: 10.1021/ic00310a001. - DOI
    1. Wilkes J.S., Zaworotko M.J. Air and water stable 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium based ionic liquids. J. Chem. Soc. Chem. Commun. 1992:965–967. doi: 10.1039/c39920000965. - DOI

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources