Sweet Ionic Liquids for Sustainable Functional Materials
Alina BRZ?CZEK-SZAFRAN1
1Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, Poland
To mitigate the problem of carbon neutrality, there has been a great deal of interest in the replacement of fossil fuel-derived chemicals with bioderived alternatives. This direction did not go unnoticed in the field of ionic liquids, wherein biomass-derived systems have been investigated for two decades.
Among promising building blocks for the development of bio-ILs are abundant, inexpensive, and renewable sugars.[1] Sugar moieties have been shown to reduce toxicity when incorporated into common imidazolium IL structures[2], and facilitate the biodegradability[3] of the ILs. On the other hand they significantly increase the viscosity, thus hindering many applications. Despite a significant progress in the development of sugar-derived ILs in the last decade, the strongest emphasis has been focused on understanding the structure–property relationships regarding their ability to form a liquid phase (significant for applications as electrolytes, solvents, catalysts etc.). Therefore, the knowledge on the molecular interactions, as well as thermal properties of sugar-based organic salts is still very limited.
In my talk, I will try to answer the question “what can offer combining the properties of carbohydrates with the properties of ILs” and highlight possible applications, wherein the hydrogen-bond-rich structure of sugar-based ionic liquids is beneficial. I will present our recent studies on the development of tailor-made sugar-based ionic liquids and organic salts for applications as catalysts[4], precursors of doped carbon materials[5], surfactants[6], and phase change materials. The presented studies will provide insights into the molecular interactions of sugar-based organic salts in the solid state, which could pave the way towards novel applications spanning e.g. thermal energy storage.
Finally, I will highlight a recent progress in the synthesis of carbohydrate-derived ILs. Although sugars are an economically favourable starting material, the process of manufacturing their ionic derivatives often require multiple-step synthetic protocols. Recent research efforts that aim at improving and simplifying the synthesis of carbohydrate-derived ILs by reducing the number of synthetic steps and/or integrating green chemistry approaches will be presented.
References:
[1] B. Gaida, A. Brzeczek-Szafran, Molecules 2020, 25, 3285.
[2] F. Billeci, H.Q.N. Gunaratne, F.D’Anna, G.G.Morgan, K.R. Seddon, N.V. Plechkova, Green Chem. 2019, 21, 1412.
[3] A. Brzeczek-Szafran, P. Wi?cek, M. Guzik, A. Chrobok, RSC Adv. 2020, 10, 18355.
[4] K. Erfurt, I. Wandzik, K. Walczak, K. Matuszek, A. Chrobok, Green Chem. 2014, 16, 3508.
[5] A. Brzeczek-Szafran, K. Erfurt, A. Blacha-Grzechnik, M. Krzywiecki, S. Boncel, A. Chrobok, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2019, 7, 19880.
[6] K. Erfurt, A, Siewniak, D. Lisicki, M. Zalewski, S. Stolte, A. Chrobok, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2020, 8, 29, 10911.