ChemInform Abstract: Thermodynamics and Micro Heterogeneity of Ionic Liquids

The high degree of organisation in the fluid phase of room-temperature ionic liquids has major consequences on their macroscopic properties, namely on their behaviour as solvents. This nanoscale self-organisation is the result of an interplay between two types of interaction in the liquid phase – Coulomb and van der Waals – that eventually leads to the formation of medium-range structures and the recognition of some ionic liquids as composed of a high-charge density, cohesive network permeated by low-charge density regions.