Lyotropic Liquid-Crystalline Gel Formation in a Room-Temperature Ionic Liquid

Abstract

Addition of water to 1-decyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide is shown to result in its spontaneous selforganization and the concomitant formation of a liquid-crystalline gel, thus providing a simple means of preparing a supramolecular assembly comprising a room-temperature ionic liquid.

1H and13C NMR study of phase transition and molecular motion in ionic liquids forming lyotropic liquid-crystalline ionogels

“…Technological developments of so called 'smart' materials are continuously boosting over the whole past decade [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Materials are classified as 'smart' if they possess an intrinsic ability to sense and definitely to respond to various external stimuli in a predictable way ( [2] and references therein).…”

“…The research of these features open new technological vista for various sensors, molecular machines, switches, controllers, etc. Ionic liquids (ILs), or sometimes specifying more precisely -room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs), which, according to definition, are compounds consisting entirely of ions, but in contrast to 'traditional' salts they are liquids already at, or close to, room temperature [8,9], are widely and successfully applied creating multifunctional materials and compositions [3][4][5][6][7]. Selecting combinations of anionic and cationic subsystems one can alter defined physical and chemical properties of RTILs getting possibilities to sense and to control various molecular processes in these media.…”

“…Gels, an important class of soft matter, have attracted considerable attention in areas of biomaterials, electrooptics, and as templates for the preparation of mesoporous materials and ordered thin films [3]. In certain cases some gels and ionogels can be considered behaving as 'smart' materials.…”

Raman Spectroscopy and Ab-Initio Model Calculations on Ionic Liquids

“…Although other techniques such as infrared spectroscopy, X-ray, and neutron diffraction studies have been used to study these ions in the liquid or solid state or at surfaces [6,52,[109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120], a real gain in our understanding came with the combination of crystal structure solution, Raman spectroscopy and ab-initio DFT calculations [108,121]. We concentrate the story on the instructive example of the l-butyl-3-methylimidazolium cation, [C 4 mim] þ (see Fig.…”

Supramolecular Structures in the Presence of Ionic Liquids

“…Davis and his coworkers (Davis et al, 1998) obtained a novel IL by anion metathesis with NaPF 6 after the imidazole-ring miconazole reacting with alkyl iodides to form imidazolium cations, which exhibited lyotropic liquid crystalline behavior while inducing the gelation of benzene. Firestone's group reported that lyotropic liquid crystalline formed in [C 10 mim]Brwater (5-40% wt%) system (Firestone et al, 2002). They also obtained anisotropic gold nanoparticles with a variety of sizes and morphologies in the nanostructured [C 10 mim]Clwater ionogel template by photochemical reduction of HAuCl 4 (Firestone et al, 2005).…”