1. Acid Catalysis with Alkane/Water Microdroplets in Ionic Liquids
- Author
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Gonzalo Abellán, Antonio Doménech-Carbó, Andreas Hirsch, Miguel Ángel Rivero-Crespo, Vicent Lloret, Rossella Greco, Antonio Leyva-Pérez, and Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)
- Subjects
UNESCO::QUÍMICA ,Inorganic chemistry ,Alkylation ,010402 general chemistry ,QUÍMICA [UNESCO] ,01 natural sciences ,Article ,Ion ,Catalysis ,Acid catalysis ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,Friedel−Crafts reaction ,Microemulsion ,Lewis acids and bases ,Friedel-Crafts reaction ,QD1-999 ,Alkane ,chemistry.chemical_classification ,010405 organic chemistry ,Water microdroplets ,Alkane microemulsions ,Ionic liquids ,3. Good health ,0104 chemical sciences ,Chemistry ,chemistry ,Ionic liquid ,ddc:547 - Abstract
Ionic liquids are composed of an organic cation and a highly delocalized perfluorinated anion, which remain tight to each other and neutral across the extended liquid framework. Here we show that n-alkanes in millimolar amounts enable a sufficient ion charge separation to release the innate acidity of the ionic liquid and catalyze the industrially relevant alkylation of phenol, after generating homogeneous, self-stabilized, and surfactant-free microdroplets (1–5 μm). This extremely mild and simple protocol circumvents any external additive or potential ionic liquid degradation and can be extended to water, which spontaneously generates microdroplets (ca. 3 μm) and catalyzes Brönsted rather than Lewis acid reactions. These results open new avenues not only in the use of ionic liquids as acid catalysts/solvents but also in the preparation of surfactant-free, well-defined ionic liquid microemulsions., R.G. thanks the ITQ and Severo Ochoa program for the concession of a fellowship. M.A.R.-C. thanks MINECO for the concession of an FPU fellowship. We thank Prof. Hans–Peter Steinrück, Dr. Florian Maier, and Bettina Heller for fruitful discussions and José M. Coll–Marqués for performing the microfluorescence measurements.
- Published
- 2021
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