New insight into the nanostructure of ionic liquids: a small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) study on liquid tri-alkyl-methyl-ammonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amides and their mixtures

We report a small angle X-ray scattering study on the liquid phase of a series of room temperature ionic liquids and their binary mixtures. The ionic liquids studied belong to the tri-alkyl-methyl-ammonium family with bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide as the anion and were studied as a function of alkyl chain length. These ionic liquids were found to exhibit marked nanoscale ordering in their isotropic liquid state as judged from the small angle X-ray scattering. The observed structural ordering is of supramolecular order and depends strongly on the length of the cation hydrophobic side chain. Moreover, the data can be analyzed on the basis of a disordered smectic A phase, consisting of strongly interdigitated bilayers that sequester the ionic liquid into polar and hydrophobic regions. These findings were also found to be consistent with density data of these molten salts. Additionally, we demonstrate that this experimentally observed nanostructuring can further be fine-tuned using binary mixtures.