Physicochemical properties of nitrile-functionalized ionic liquids

A series of ionic liquids (ILs) based on nitrile-functionalized imidazolium, pyridinium, and quaternary ammonium as cations and chlorides and tetrafluoroborate, hexafluorophosphate, dicyanamide, and bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide as anions have been prepared and characterized. The physicochemical properties such as spectroscopic, thermal, solubility, surface, electrochemical, tribological, and toxic properties were comparatively studied. The results showed that the incorporation of a CN group to cations could result in remarkable changes in these properties. The reason resulting in such remarkable differences in the properties may be attributed to the conformational changes in the imidazolium groups caused by the interaction between the CN group with other neighboring cations or anions and the enhancement in hydrogen-bonding interactions due to the incorporation of a CN group.