BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University associate professor of chemistry Ram Mohan is helping fellow chemists worldwide. Mohan’s lab is part of a team exploring processes in a new class of solvents.
Mohan and his sabbatical host, Dr. Janet Scott of The Center for Chemistry in Monash University, Australia, recently published a review of the reactivity of ionic liquids. Ionic liquids have been a hot, new topic in chemistry over the last several years. Industrial scientists at such companies as BASF and Merck have been integrating ionic liquids into their work, looking for safer ways to produce chemicals. “Ionic liquids are opening doors for industry,” said Mohan, who has been working with the liquids for the past two years. “Companies are developing new uses of ionic liquids, such as lubricants and batteries.”
In the past, reviews on ionic liquids have focused on their role as a reaction medium. “This is one of the first comprehensive reviews that focuses on the possibility that ionic liquids can participate in reactions and give unexpected products,” said Mohan.
Most people are familiar with ionic compounds, the most common being table salt. Ionic liquids are a similar substance that remain in liquid form at room temperature. “In order to have salt be a liquid, you would have to heat it up to 800 degrees,” said Mohan. “With ionic liquids, you are talking about the same type of substance, but they are liquid without having to heat them.” Traditional organic solvents are volatile and pose a respiratory hazard, but ionic liquids are practically non-volatile and do not pose a respiratory hazard.
Until now, chemists assumed ionic liquids were simply a medium for reactions, much like a football field where the action occurred. Mohan, Scott, a leading international expert on ionic liquids, and Shahana Afrose Chowdhury, a Ph.D. student at Monash University of Melbourne, Australia, were invited to write the review in a leading international chemistry journal, Tetrahedron. “Several reports in the literature have clearly shown that ionic liquid participates in chemical reactions,” said Mohan. That means chemists who work with them may be getting unexpected products in their reactions. “The study helps them better understand what they are working with,” said Mohan.