Miscibility, ionic liquids

Ionic liquid Miscibility with water Equilibrium solubility (g 1 )... 

The choice of the anion ultimately intended to be an element of the ionic liquid is of particular importance. Perhaps more than any other single factor, it appears that the anion of the ionic liquid exercises a significant degree of control over the molecular solvents (water, ether, etc.) with which the IL will form two-phase systems. Nitrate salts, for example, are typically water-miscible while those of hexaflu-orophosphate are not those of tetrafluoroborate may or may not be, depending on the nature of the cation. Certain anions such as hexafluorophosphate are subject to hydrolysis at higher temperatures, while those such as bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonamide are not, but are extremely expensive. Additionally, the cation of the salt used to perform any anion metathesis is important. While salts of potassium, sodium, and silver are routinely used for this purpose, the use of ammonium salts in acetone is frequently the most convenient and least expensive approach. 

Since no special ligand design is usually required to dissolve transition metal complexes in ionic liquids, the application of ionic ligands can be an extremely useful tool with which to immobilize the catalyst in the ionic medium. In applications in which the ionic catalyst layer is intensively extracted with a non-miscible solvent (i.e., under the conditions of biphasic catalysis or during product recovery by extraction) it is important to ensure that the amount of catalyst washed from the ionic liquid is extremely low. Full immobilization of the (often quite expensive) transition metal catalyst, combined with the possibility of recycling it, is usually a crucial criterion for the large-scale use of homogeneous catalysis (for more details see Section 5.3.5). 

Notwithstanding their very low vapor pressure, their good thermal stability (for thermal decomposition temperatures of several ionic liquids, see [11, 12]) and their wide operating range, the key property of ionic liquids is the potential to tune their physical and chemical properties by variation of the nature of the anions and cations. An illustration of their versatility is given by their exceptional solubility characteristics, which make them good candidates for multiphasic reactions (see Section 5.3.4). Their miscibility with water, for example, depends not only on the hydrophobicity of the cation, but also on the nature of the anion and on the temperature. 

Addition of co-solvents can also change the co-miscibility characteristics of ionic liquids. As an example, the hydrophobic [BMIM][PFg] salt can be completely dissolved in an aqueous ethanol mixture containing between 0.5 and 0.9 mole fraction of ethanol, whereas the ionic liquid itself is only partially miscible with pure water or pure ethanol [13]. The mixing of different salts can also result in systems with modified properties (e.g., conductivity, melting point). 

Ionic liquid -i- catalyst -i- No upper phase a co-solvent miscible with the ... 

A co-solvent that is poorly miscible with ionic liquids but highly miscible with the products can be added in the separation step (after the reaction) to facilitate the product separation. The Pd-mediated FFeck coupling of aryl halides or benzoic anhydride with alkenes, for example, can be performed in [BMIM][PFg], the products being extracted with cyclohexane. In this case, water can also be used as an extraction solvent, to remove the salt by-products formed in the reaction [18]. From a practical point of view, the addition of a co-solvent can result in cross-contamination, and it has to be separated from the products in a supplementary step (distillation). More interestingly, unreacted organic reactants themselves (if they have nonpolar character) can be recycled to the separation step and can be used as the extractant co-solvent. 

When water-miscible ionic liquids are used as solvents, and when the products are partly or totally soluble in these ionic liquids, the addition of polar solvents, such as water, in a separation step after the reaction can make the ionic liquid more hydrophilic and facilitate the separation of the products from the ionic liquid/water mixture (Table 5.3-2, case e). This concept has been developed by Union Carbide for the hydroformylation of higher alkenes catalyzed by Rh-sulfonated phosphine ligand in the N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP)/water system. Thanks to the presence of NMP, the reaction is performed in one homogeneous phase. After the reaction. 

Despite all the advantages of this process, one main limitation is the continuous catalyst carry-over by the products, with the need to deactivate it and to dispose of wastes. One way to optimize catalyst consumption and waste disposal was to operate the reaction in a biphasic system. The first difficulty was to choose a good solvent. N,N -Dialkylimidazolium chloroaluminate ionic liquids proved to be the best candidates. These can easily be prepared on an industrial scale, are liquid at the reaction temperature, and are very poorly miscible with the products. They play the roles both of the catalyst solvent and of the co-catalyst, and their Lewis acidities can be adjusted to obtain the best performances. The solubility of butene in these solvents is high enough to stabilize the active nickel species (Table 5.3-3), the nickel... 

The cationic nature of the copper(I) catalyst means that it is immobilized in the ionic liquid. This permits the PMMA product to be obtained, with negligible copper contamination, by a simple extraction procedure with toluene (in which the ionic liquid is not miscible) as the solvent. The ionic liquid/catalyst solution was subsequently reused. 

When either the organic solvent or the ionic liquid is used as pure solvent, proper control over the water content, or rather the water activity, is of crucial importance, as a minimum amount is necessary to maintain the enzyme s activity. For ionic liquids, a reaction can be operated at constant water activity by use of the same methods as established for organic solvents [17]. [BMIM][PFg] or [BMIM][(CF3S02)2N], for example, may be used as pure solvents and in biphasic systems. Water-miscible ionic liquids, such as [BMIM][BF4] or [MMIM][MeS04], can be used in the second case. 

Husum et al. found that the hydrolytic activities of P-galactosidase from E. coli and the protease subtilisin in a 50 % aqueous solution of the water-miscible ionic liquid [BMIM][Bp4] were comparable to those in 50 % aqueous solutions of ethanol or acetonitrile (Entry 9) [37]. 

The polarity of common ionic liquids is in the range of the lower alcohols or formamide, and their miscibility with water varies widely and unpredictably and is... 

Ionic liquids that are not miscible with organic solvents or water may be used to aid product separation or used in liquid-liquid extraction processes. 

Using Nile Red, the polarity of several ionic liquids has been found to be comparable to that of lower alcohols. Figure 4.4 summarizes the polarity data for some ionic liquids with comparisons to common organic solvents (the structure of Nile Red is shown in Chapter 1). Polar organic solvents like dichloromethane and diethyl ether are miscible with ionic liquids, whereas solvents of low polarity show partial miscibility and nonpolar solvents are essentially immiscible. 

Miscibility is an important consideration when selecting solvents for use in biphasic systems. Table 4.4 shows the miscibility of three ionic liquids with water and some organic solvents. [bmim][PFe] was found to be miscible with organic solvents whose dielectric constant is higher than 7, but was not soluble in less polar solvents or in water. Basic [bmim][AlCl4] was found to react with protic solvents, and the acidic form also reacted with acetone, tetrahydrofuran and toluene. 

Table 4.4 Miscibility of organic solvents with ionic liquids...

Oxidized MWCNTs have also been tested in conjunction with solid-state electrolytes [107]. Compared to pristine MWCNTs, the oxidized MWCNTs have a better miscibility with the ionic liquids used in the electrolyte. Overall, a much improved gelforming ability resulted. The latter was clearly reflected in the device performance. In particular, devices with oxidized MWCNTs outperformed those with pristine MWCNTs and the reference devices in terms of photocurrents, Vocs, and efficiencies. Importantly, the device stability was also greatly enhanced when oxidized MWCNTs were implemented - 100 days with a loss of overall efficiency by less than 10 °/o. The authors ascribed the drop in efficiency to phase separation and subsequent leakage of ionic liquids. 

The nature of this ionic/hydrophilic liquid phase can be quite diverse it can be made by an onium salt (e.g., ammonium or phosphonium), by an ionic liquid (e.g., imidazolium salts), by polyethyleneglycols, and even water. What is required is that the catalyst-philic phase is not miscible with the other phases... 

Ionic liquids in general have higher densities than most organic reactants and products. They are also quite different in other physical and chemical properties, as discussed below. Therefore, they usually have limited miscibility with most reactants and products of practical interest. Ionic liquids have been used to carry catalysts that are charged or bear polar functional groups the catalysts are retained in the ionic liquid phase after separation of the product phase. It has even been reported that an inert ionic liquid could be used as a medium to make and stabilize metallic nanoclusters 12). 

Catalysis in ionic liquids is not limited to biphasic reaction systems. When the reaction mixture is homogeneous, an extraction solvent that is immiscible with the ionic liquid can be used to remove the product. A number of organic solvents display little or only limited miscibility with these liquids. However, this advantage is of limited value in practice, because one major incentive for using ionic liquids is to avoid volatile organic compounds. 

In an ideal case, an ionic liquid dissolves the catalyst and displays a partial miscibility with the reactants under reaction conditions (giving a relatively high reaction rate) and negligible miscibility with the product (giving enhanced selectivity and yield). At the termination of the reaction, the product can be removed by simple decantation without the need to extract the catalyst. This mode of operation eliminates heating and therefore results in reduced loss of catalyst by thermal decomposition (/). 

When the products are partially or totally miscible in the ionic liquid, the separation of the products can be more complicated. It is however possible to reduce the solubility of typical organic products in the ionic liquid by introducing a more polar solvent that can be separated by distillation afterward at a lower temperature (27). Because of the low vapor pressure of the ionic liquid, direct distillation can be applied without azeotrope formation (28). However, such operation is often limited to highly volatile or thermally labile products because of the general thermal instability of organometallic catalysts. 

As an alternative to distillation, extraetion with a eo-solvent that is poorly mis-eible with the ionie liquid has often been used. There are many solvents that can be used to extract product from the ionic liquid phase, whether from a monophase reaction or from a partially miscible system. Typical solvents are alkanes and ethers (15). Supercritical CO2 (SCCO2) was recently shown to be a potential alternative solvent for extraction of organics from ionic liquids (22). CO2 has a remarkably high solubility in ionic liquids. The SCCO2 dissolves quite well in ionic liquids to facilitate extraction, but there is no appreciable ionic liquid solubilization in the CO2 phase in the supercritical state. As a result, pure products can be recovered. For example, about 0.5 mol fraction of CO2 was dissolved at 40°C and 50 bar pressure in [BMIMJPFe, but the total volume was only swelled by 10%. Therefore, supercritical CO2 may be applied to extract a wide variety of solutes from ionic liquids, without product contamination by the ionic liquid (29). 

Heretofore, ionic liquids incorporating the 1,3-dialkylimidazolium cation have been preferred as they interact weakly with the anions and are more thermally stable than the quaternary ammonium cations. Recently, the physical properties of 1,2,3,4-tetraalkylimidazolium- and 1,3-dialkylimidazolium-containing ionic liquids in combination with various hydrophobic and hydrophilic anions have been systematically investigated (36,41). The melting point, thermal stability, density, viscosity, and other physical properties have been correlated with alkyl chain length of the imidazolium cation and the nature of the anion. The anion mainly determines water miscibility and has the most dramatic effect on the properties. An increase in the alkyl chain length of the cations from butyl to octyl, for example, increases the hydrophobicity and viscosity of the ionic liquid, whereas densities and surface tension values decrease, as expected. 

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