Microscopic solvation environments in a prototype room-temperature ionic liquid as elucidated by resonance Raman spectroscopy of iodine and bromine.

ABSTRACT

Microscopic solvation environments in a prototype ionic liquid, bmimTf2N; 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium-bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, have been studied with the use of halides, X2 and Xn- (X=I, Br; n=3,5), as molecular probes. Resonance Raman spectroscopy has been used to detect these halogen species existing in bmimTf2N as well as in reference solvents including heptane, cyclohexane, KX/H2O and benzene. In heptane and cyclohexane, only free X2 species are detected. In KX/H2O, only Xn- and, in benzene, only benzene-X2 complexes are detected. On the contrary, free X2 and Xn- are concomitantly detected in bmimTf2N, indicating that there are two distinct solvation environments in bmimTf2N, non-polar environments that solvate free X2 and polar environments that stabilize Xn-. These two distinct solvation environments are most likely to arise from microscopic structural heterogeneity of ionic liquids.