JAN WIMBERG¹, FRANK M. STIEMKE¹, HÜLYA SCHNETZER¹ and THOMAS J.S. SCHUBERT¹,*
*Corresponding author
IOLITEC Ionic Liquids Technologies GmbH, Salzstraße 184, Heilbronn, Germany

Abstract

Ionic liquids (ILs) are promising materials for the utilization in synthesis and stabilization of monodispersed nanoparticles, offering a plethora of unique qualities, like e.g. a high thermal stability and a negligible vapour pressure as well as non-flammability. The easy adaptability of ILs enables the customized preparation of surface active compounds with excellent solvation characteristics. Since the safe and easy handling of nanoparticles is one of the most crucial tasks in terms of their application in daily products, IOLITEC is performing intensive research to synthesize stable nanodispersions with a narrow size distribution. The preparation of customized dispersions with different carbon allotropes and the preliminary testing of their suitability for inkjet-printing are reported.

INTRODUCTION

Though the first ionic liquid ethyl ammonium nitrate was already synthesized in 1914 by Walden (1), the remarkable potential of this class of materials was not well recognized until the mid of 1990s (just about 20 publications per year). Since then, ILs attracted great attention, leading to a permanently increasing exploration as innovative materials with numerous unique properties and to the synthesis of several economically priced ionic liquids on a technical scale (2). ILs consist entirely of organic cations with inorganic, or rarely, organic anions and are liquid at unusual low temperatures, by definition below 100°C as well as often over a wide temperature range. The low symmetry of the differently substituted cations/anions and the potential charge delocalization over large parts of the ions are mainly responsible for the low melting points of these kind of compounds. The manifold combinations of cations and anions are providing a large number of different liquid materials with highly adjustable chemical as well as physical properties, matching the requirements of particular applications (Figure 1). Characteristic qualities of ILs are ...