Other Ionic Impurities from Incomplete Metathesis Reactions

5 Other Ionic Impurities from Incomplete Metathesis Reactions 

Apart from halide and protic impurities, ionic liquids can also be contaminated with other ionic impurities from the metathesis reaction. This is especially likely if the alkali salt used in the metathesis reaction shows significant solubility in the 

In this context it is important to note that the detection of this land of alkali cation impurity in ionic liquids is not easy with traditional methods for reaction monitoring in ionic liquid synthesis (such as conventional NMR spectroscopy). More specialized procedures are required to quantify the amount of alkali ions in the ionic liquid or the quantitative ratio of organic cation to anion. Quantitative ion chromatography is probably the most powerful tool for this kind of quality analysis. 

Because of these analytical problems, we expect that some of the disagreements in the literature (mainly concerning the physicochemical data of some tetrafluoro-borate ionic liquids) may have their origins in differing amounts of alkali cation impurities in the ionic liquids analyzed. 

Without special drying procedures and completely inert handling, water is omnipresent in ionic liquids. Even the apparently hydrophobic ionic liquid [BMIM][(CF3S02)2N] saturates with about 1.4 mass% of water [15], a significant molar amount. For more hydrophilic ionic liquids, water uptake from air can be much greater. Imidazolium halide salts in particular are laiown to be extremely hygroscopic, one of the reasons why it is so difficult to make completely proton-free chloroaluminate ionic liquids. 

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