A greener, halide‑free approach to ionic liquid synthesis

Ferguson, Jamie L.; Holbrey, John D.; Ng, Shieling; Plechkova, Natalia V.; Seddon, Kenneth R.; Tomaszowska, Alina A.; Wassell, David F.

doi:10.1351/PAC-CON-11-07-21

Pure Appl. Chem., 2012, Vol. 84, No. 3, pp. 723-744

http://dx.doi.org/10.1351/PAC-CON-11-07-21

Published online 2011-12-08

A greener, halide‑free approach to ionic liquid synthesis*

Jamie L. Ferguson^1,2, John D. Holbrey², Shieling Ng², Natalia V. Plechkova², Kenneth R. Seddon², Alina A. Tomaszowska² and David F. Wassell²*

¹ Centre for Catalysis Research and Innovation, Department of Chemistry, University of Ottawa, 10 Marie Curie, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada
² The QUILL Research Centre, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, The Queen’s University of Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT9 5AG, UK

Abstract: Conventionally, ionic liquids with anions generated from simple organic acids are prepared following a metathetic procedure from a halide salt, usually a chloride. Here, we describe an efficient means of generating hydroxide solutions of the cations of interest, allowing many ionic liquids to be produced by simple acid–base reactions, completely avoiding the use of halides.

*Pure Appl. Chem. 84, 411–860 (2012). A collection of invited papers for the IUPAC project 2008-016-1-300 “Chlorine-free Synthesis for Green Chemistry”.