SISGR: Physical Chemistry of Reaction Dynamics in Ionic Liquids
Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) are liquids made up of atomic and molecular ions. This is in contrast with more common liquids, such as water, that are made up of neutral molecules. The additional charges on the atoms and molecules can alter the properties of these liquids, for example they tend to have a very high vapor pressure and the ability to shield charge in electronic devices. For these and other reasons RTILs have recently been deployed in a number of applications that involve production of free electrons in the liquid, such as batteries, capacitors, nuclear power plants, and solar cells. Electrons tend to be very reactive, and understanding their behaviour in these liquids is important for the future design of ionic liquids to be employed in these environments. This study investigated the behavior of electrons generated in RTILs by pulses of ultraviolet light, including how long they survive, and how reactive they are with the both the surrounding liquid and impurities in the liquid. The ionic liquid studied was one of the most commonly used, called N-alkyl-N-methyl-pyrrolidinium bistriflimide. What the study revealed was that the majority of the electrons initially created, about 96%, had a very short lifetime of less than one picosecond (10-12 second) due to a process called geminate recombination. The study also demonstrated that the electrons are very reactive at the moment they are detached from the molecules in the liquid by light, but that they relax very quickly and lose almost all of their reactivity in much less than one picosecond. The short lifetime and rapid loss of reactivity both serve as important mechanisms that protect the liquid from radiolytic damage.