0000000000046651
AUTHOR
Lorenzo Gontrani
Identification Techniques I
Infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopy have a high potential for characterisation of material. Extensive series of wet chemical analysis may be substituted by a single spectroscopic measurement followed by detailed chemometric data evaluation. Topics of this chapter are: (i) basics of IR and Raman spectroscopy, (ii) the registration of “correct” spectra, and (iii) spectra evaluation. Dedicated applications in the area of conservation science are collected in separate chapters. The infrared (IR) spectrum is often called the fingerprint of a substance. An IR spectrum identifies a substance like a human fingerprint. Due to their origin the features of an IR spectrum are bands, not peaks. They in…
Low-Q peak in X-ray patterns of choline-phenylalanine and homophenylalanine: a combined effect of chain and stacking
Abstract In this contribution we report for the first time the X-ray patterns of choline-phenylalanine and choline-homophenylalanine ionic liquids. The presence of a low Q peak in both systems is another evidence that a long alkyl chain is not always needed to establish a nanodomain segregation in the liquid sufficient to be revealed by the diffraction experiment. These new data are compared with the diffraction patterns and the theoretical calculations of other choline-aminoacid ionic liquids recently reported. A significant role might be played by the stacking interactions between aromatic rings.
Communication: anion-specific response of mesoscopic organization in ionic liquids upon pressurization
One of the outstanding features of ionic liquids is their inherently hierarchical structural organization at mesoscopic spatial scales. Recently experimental and computational studies showed the fading of this feature when pressurising. Here we use simulations to show that this effect is not general: appropriate anion choice leads to an obstinate resistance against pressurization. Published by AIP Publishing.
Mesoscopic structural organization in fluorinated room temperature ionic liquids
The presence of fluorous tails in room-temperature ionic liquids imparts new properties to their already rich spectrum of appealing features. The interest towards this class of compounds that are of ionic nature with melting point less than 25 degrees C is accordingly growing; in particular, compounds bearing relatively long fluorous tails have begun to be considered. In this invited presentation, we show recent results arising from the systematic study of structural properties of a series of fluorinated room temperature ionic liquids, with growing fluorous chain length. At odd with the current understanding of this class of compounds, we show experimentally that they are characterized by t…
Mesoscopic structural organization in fluorinated pyrrolidinium-based room temperature ionic liquids
Abstract In this contribution the microscopic and mesoscopic structural organization in a series of fluorinated room temperature ionic liquids, based on N-methyl-N-alkylpyrrolidinium cations and on bis(perfluoroalkylsulfonyl)imide anions, is investigated, using a synergy of experimental (X-ray and neutron scattering) and computational (Molecular Dynamics) techniques. The proposed ionic liquids are of high interest as electrolyte media for lithium battery applications. Together with information on their good ion transport properties in conjunction with low viscosity, we also describe the existence of nm-scale spatial organization induced by the segregation of fluorous moieties into domains. …
Liquid Structure of Trihexyltetradecylphosphonium Chloride at Ambient Temperature: An X-ray Scattering and Simulation Study
We report on an experimental and simulation study done on a representative room temperature ionic liquid, namely tetradecyltrihexylphosphonium chloride, at ambient conditions. The study was conducted using small and wide angle X-ray scattering and molecular dynamics simulations. Both approaches converge in indicating that this material is characterized by the existence of strong P-Cl interactions (with characteristic distances between 3.5 and 5.0 Å) and by the occurrence of nanoscale segregation, despite the symmetric nature of the cation and similarly to other room temperature ionic liquids. A good agreement is found between the structure factor and pair correlation functions obtained from…
Nanoscale organization in the fluorinated room temperature ionic liquid: Tetraethyl ammonium (trifluoromethanesulfonyl)(nonafluorobutylsulfonyl)imide
Fluorinated Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (FRTILs) are a branch of ionic liquids that is the object of growing interest for a wide range of potential applications, due to the synergic combination of specifically ionic features and those properties that stem from fluorous tails. So far limited experimental work exists on the micro-and mesoscopic structural organization in this class of compounds. Such a work is however necessary to fully understand morphological details at atomistic level that would have strong implications in terms of bulk properties. Here we use the synergy between X-ray and neutron scattering together with molecular dynamics simulations to access structural details of a …
Microscopic structural and dynamic features in triphilic room temperature ionic liquids
Here we report a thorough investigation of the microscopic and mesoscopic structural organization in a series of triphilic fluorinated room temperature ionic liquids, namely [1-alkyl, 3-methylimidazolium][(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)(nonafluorobutylsulfonyl)imide], with alkyl=ethyl, butyl, octyl ([C(n)mim][IM14], n = 2, 4, 8), based on the synergic exploitation of X-ray and Neutron Scattering and Molecular Dynamics simulations. This study reveals the strong complementarity between X-ray/neutron scattering in detecting the complex segregated morphology in these systems at mesoscopic spatial scales. The use of MD simulations delivering a very good agreement with experimental data allows us to g…