page_title: Ionic liquid
section_title: Room-temperature varieties
hierarchical_section_title: Ionic liquid / Room-temperature varieties
caption_attribution_description: English: Table salt and ionic liquid [bmim]NTf2 Українська: Кам'яна сіль та йонна рідина [bmim]NTf2 Русский: Поваренная соль и ионная жидкость [bmim]NTf2 Français&#160;: Sel de table et liquide ionique [bmim]NTf2
context_page_description: An ionic liquid is a salt in the liquid state. In some contexts, the term has been restricted to salts whose melting point is below some arbitrary temperature, such as 100 °C. While ordinary liquids such as water and gasoline are predominantly made of electrically neutral molecules, ionic liquids are largely made of ions and short-lived ion pairs. These substances are variously called liquid electrolytes, ionic melts, ionic fluids, fused salts, liquid salts, or ionic glasses.
  Ionic liquids have many potential applications. They are powerful solvents and can be used as electrolytes. Salts that are liquid at near-ambient temperature are important for electric battery applications, and have been considered as sealants due to their very low vapor pressure.
  Any salt that melts without decomposing or vaporizing usually yields an ionic liquid. Sodium chloride, for example, melts at 801 °C into a liquid that consists largely of sodium cations and chloride anions. Conversely, when an ionic liquid is cooled, it often forms an ionic solid—which may be either crystalline or glassy.
  The ionic bond is usually stronger than the Van der Waals forces between the molecules of ordinary liquids.
context_section_description: Room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) consist of bulky and asymmetric organic cations such as 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium, 1-alkylpyridinium, N-methyl-N-alkylpyrrolidinium and ammonium ions.  Phosphonium cations are less common, but offer some advantageous properties. A wide range of anions are employed, ranging from simple halides, which generally suffer high melting points, to inorganic anions such as tetrafluoroborate and hexafluorophosphate, and to large organic anions like bistriflimide, triflate or tosylate. There are also many potential uses of ionic liquids with simple non-halogenated organic anions such as formate, alkylsulfate, alkylphosphate or glycolate. The melting point of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate is about −80 °C (−112 °F) and it is a colorless liquid with high viscosity at room temperature. If a highly asymmetric cation is combined with a highly asymmetric anion, formed ionic liquid may not freeze down to very low temperatures (down to −150 °C), and the glass transition temperature was detected below −100 °C in the case of ionic liquids with N-methyl-N-alkylpyrrolidinium cations and fluorosulfonyl-trifluoromethanesulfonylimide (FTFSI). Water is a common impurity in ionic liquids, as it can be absorbed from the atmosphere and influences the transport properties of RTILs, even at relatively low concentrations.
  In many synthetic processes using transition-metal catalysts, metal nanoparticles play an important role as the actual catalyst or as a catalyst reservoir. ILs are an appealing medium for the formation and stabilization of catalytically active transition metal nanoparticles. More importantly, ILs can be made that incorporate coordinating groups, for example, with nitrile groups on either the cation or anion (CN-IL). In various C-C coupling reactions catalyzed by a palladium catalyst, it has been found that palladium nanoparticles are better stabilized in CN-IL compared to non-functionalized ionic liquids; thus enhanced catalytic activity and recyclability are realized.
caption: Table salt NaCl and ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide at 27 °С
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