Designing a New Strategy for the Formation of IL‐In‐Oil Microemulsions Containing Double Chain Surface‐Active Ionic Liquid

Increasing applications of ionic liquids (ILs) as different components of microemulsions (as the polar liquid, the oil phase, or the surfactant) have made it imperative to custom design microemulsions of interest. Here, we discuss the possibility of creating a huge number of IL-in-oil microemulsions, simply by replacing the inorganic cation, Na+ of NaAOT, by any organic cation and using different ILs as the polar core. To illustrate the strategy, we describe in detail the synthesis of AOT-derived surface-active ionic liquids (SAILs), which can be used to produce a huge number of IL-in-oil microemulsions. In support of the method described, we adduce the use of different ILs as polar phase to adjust the structural parameters of microemulsions. The results indicate that depending on IL used, the amount of IL within the core of microemulsions can be easily manipulated to directly affect the size of aggregates in microemulsions. We further discuss the effect of water addition on microemulsions containing hydrophobic ILs and compare with microemulsions containing hydrophilic IL. The strategy reviewed here will enable chemists to design microemulsions and tune their physical properties according to the present requirements.