Nucleophilic and acid catalyst behavior of a protic ionic liquid in a molecular reaction media. Part 1

This work presents a new approach using ionic liquids, namely ethylammonium nitrate. The aim was to analyze how the addition of small amounts of a protic ionic liquid to a pure molecular solvent, modifies the microscopic characteristics of a reaction medium. In order to achieve this, a kinetic study of nucleophilic aromatic substitution reactions between 1-fluoro-2,4-dinitrobenzene and 1-butylamine or piperidine was developed in this type of binary mixtures. We have detected nucleophiles competition originated by the presence of the ionic solvent at very low concentrations, observing the ethylamine derivative as the main substitution product. Moreover, in the light of previous results we have confirmed that the protic ionic liquid can act as both Bronsted acid and/or nucleophile. In this connection, we have selected the nucleophilic addition of amines to carbonyl compounds as reaction model. The protic ionic liquid in the presence of aromatic aldehydes substituted by electron-donating groups makes possible the formation of the corresponding imines with good yields. The results demonstrated that the influence of the protic ionic liquid is very important in the course of both reaction systems. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.