Chemistry Seminar: Solvation in Ionic Liquids and Deep Eutectic Solvents: Cosolvent Solutions with Methanol and Methanol/Water Mixtures

Chemistry Seminar
Solvation in Ionic Liquids and Deep Eutectic Solvents: Cosolvent Solutions with Methanol and Methanol/Water Mixtures

Dr. Mark Heitz
Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
SUNY Brockport

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Abstract:
Ionic liquids (ILs) and more recently deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have had a prominent place in liquids research over several decades. The primary interest is in their use as potential replacements for organic solvents in a wide variety of chemical applications in diverse areas such as chemical synthesis, electrolyte media for batteries, fuel cells, and solar cells. Given the large number of possible cation/anion combinations, this allows for specific tailoring of ILs and DESs to create task-specific “designer” solvents. While this affords interesting and novel media formulations, the associated solution physicochemical properties ultimately govern their utility. Commonly, these solvents can be rather viscous (> 10 cP, and up to ~2000 cP), which implicates molecular transport properties. One viscosity mitigation strategy is to form solutions using molecular cosolvents. Much has been published on neat ILs and DESs, with less attention given to the study of cosolvent-modified systems. But for practical applications that use ILs and DESs the question stands: how does the presence of a molecular cosolvent influence component interaction in these systems? One important consideration is the effect of water in these media. Water is usually implicated as an impurity, particularly for characterization of IL physicochemical properties. Does the presence of water or other solvent compromise the IL or DES utility? As the amount of cosolvent increases, how does this change the molecular interactions? We are interested in the influence(s) solvent addition has and how additional solution components change the native IL or DES solvent environment. To address this general question, time-resolved 2D electronic spectroscopic techniques are used to examine molecular solvation through characterizing the solvation dynamics of the classic fluorescent solvation probe, coumarin 153.

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