Using ionic liquids to formulate microemulsions: Current state of affairs

Studies on formation and percolation in ionic liquids/TX-100/water microemulsions

“…Therefore, in this type of ILs, stronger cation-cation and cation-anion separation and an overlap of the cation-cation and cation-anion shells were observed [41]. Such structure enables formation of surfactant monolayer, which is sufficient to separate IL and water domains [42]. Similar phase diagram of [BMIM][PF 6 ]/TX-100/ water was obtained and presented by Lian [16].…”

Ionic Liquids as Surfactants – Applications as Demulsifiers of Petroleum Emulsions

“…ILs have found a variety of applications in the oil industry, such as pollutant removal, corrosion inhibitors and viscosity reducers [12][13][14]. ILs have found also wide applications as surfactants [15][16], and recently the application of ILs as demulsifiers for both W/O and O/W in petroleum industry have been described [17][18][19].…”

Understanding and Optimizing Microemulsions with Magnetic Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (MRTILs)

“…[14][15][16] As just stated RTILs can also be a component in forming microemulsions, where compared to classical microemulsions they can take the part of the water and/or the oil, depending on whether one employs a hydrophilic or hydrophobic RTIL. 14,[17][18][19][20] The first case is the normal one but there are also examples known where an RTIL substitutes the oil phase in a microemulsion. 21 The formation of RTIL containing microemulsions has mostly been investigated for bmim based ILs and with nonionic surfactants, where in particular TX-100 has been shown to be quite effective.…”