Ethanolammonium nitrate

An ionic liquid (IL) is literally an ionic compound (a salt) that is a liquid. Of most current interest are salts that are liquids at room temperature (RTILs), or at least below 100 °C. There is a range of compounds that form room temperature ionic liquids dating back to ethanolammonium nitrate, (EtNFQ+ (N03) (m.p. 14 °C), synthesised by Walden in 1914. Perhaps the most popular and well-studied are those based on the l-butyT3-methylimidazolium (bmim) cation, such as bmim+ PF6 (13.20) and bmim 1 BI 4 which melts at ca. -80 °C. The imidazolium ionic liquids were initially used as their halogenoaluminate salts but they have a major drawback in that they are highly moisture sensitive. 

Gener ly, ILs are defined as those fused salts with a melting point less than 100 °C, with salts with higher melting points referred to as molten salts. As far as we can ascertain, the first IL discovered was ethanolammonium nitrate, reported in 1888 by Gabriel, which has a melting point of 52—55 and is also a PIL. Ethylammonium nitrate... 

BAN), reported in 1914 by Walden with a melting point of 12.5 °C, was the first truly room-temperature ionic liquid discovered and has been the focus of most of the PIL investigations, whereas ethanolammonium nitrate has received little attention BAN stands out from other ILs, and many other solvents, because of its waterlike properties, in that it can form a three-dimensional hydrogen-bonded network and has an equal number of hydrogen donor and acceptor sites."... 

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