Photodetachment, electron cooling, and recombination, in a series of neat aliphatic room temperature ionic liquids.

Transient absorption following photodetachment of a series of neat methyl-alkyl-pyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)amides at 6.20 eV was measured with sub-picosecond time resolution in the visible and near-IR portions of the spectrum. This series spans the onset of structuring in the liquids in the form of polarity alternation. Excitation promotes the electron into a delocalized state with a very large reactive radius. Strong transient absorption is observed in the visible spectrum with a ∼700 fs lifetime, and much weaker, long-lived absorption is observed in the near-IR spectrum. Absorption in the visible is shown to be consistent with the hole, and absorption in the near-IR is assigned to the free solvated electron. Yield of free electrons is estimated at ∼4%, is insensitive to the size of the cation, and is determined in less than 1 ps. Solvation of free electrons depends strongly on the size of the cation and correlates well with the viscosity of the liquid. In addition to radiolytic stability of the aliphatic cations, ultrafast, efficient recombination of separated charge in NTf2 (-) based ionic liquids following photo-excitation near the band-gap may prevent subsequent reactive damage associated with anions.

Photodetachment and electron reactivity in 1-methyl-1-butyl-pyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)amide.

The transient absorption spectrum in the range 500 nm-1000 nm was measured with ultrafast time resolution on a flowing neat, aliphatic, room-temperature ionic liquid following anion photodetachment. In this region the spectrum was shown to be a combination of absorption from the electron and the hole. Spectrally-resolved electron quenching determined a bimodal shape for the hole spectrum in agreement with recent computational predictions on a smaller aliphatic ionic liquid [Margulis et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 133, 20186 (2011)]. For time delays beyond 15 ps, spectral evolution qualitatively agrees with recent radiolysis experiments [Wishart et al., Faraday Discuss. 154, 353 (2012)]. However, the shape of the spectrum is different, reflecting the contrast in ionization energy between the two methods. Previously unobserved reactivity of the electron was found with a time constant of 300 fs. The results demonstrate solvent control of the rate coefficient for reaction between the electron and proton, with a rapid decline in the rate within the first picosecond.