Tetrahalidometallate(II) Ionic Liquids with More than One Metal: The Effect of Bromide versus Chloride

Chemistry. 2022 Nov 16;28(64):e202201068. doi: 10.1002/chem.202201068. Epub 2022 Sep 15.

Abstract

Fifteen N-butylpyridinium salts - five monometallic [C4 Py]2 [MBr4 ] and ten bimetallic [C4 Py]2 [M0.5 a M0.5 b Br4 ] (M=Co, Cu, Mn, Ni, Zn) - were synthesized, and their structures and thermal and electrochemical properties were studied. All the compounds are ionic liquids (ILs) with melting points between 64 and 101 °C. Powder and single-crystal X-ray diffraction show that all ILs are isostructural. The electrochemical stability windows of the ILs are between 2 and 3 V. The conductivities at room temperature are between 10-5 and 10-6 S cm-1 . At elevated temperatures, the conductivities reach up to 10-4 S cm-1 at 70 °C. The structures and properties of the current bromide-based ILs were also compared with those of previous examples using chloride ligands, which illustrated differences and similarities between the two groups of ILs.

Keywords: N-butylpyridinium bromide; electrochemistry; ionic liquids; metal-containing ionic liquids; tetrahalidometallates.