Studies on Thermal Properties of Selected Aprotic and Protic Ionic Liquids

We describe herein the thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) investigations of the thermal properties of selected room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs). The dependence of the thermal properties on both cation and anion structures of RTILs was systematically studied. The ionic liquids (ILs) investigated here include 28 different imidazolium-based ILs, 22 ammonium-based ILs, and 16 amide-based ILs. In general, these three cation classes exhibit different thermal behaviors but follow a quite systematic trend as expected from the corresponding structural variation. The ILs with bromide as the conjugate anion have lower thermal stabilities than those with bis(trifluoromethane sulfonyl) imide or bis(perfluoroethyl sulfonyl) imide as the conjugate anion. The mass of TGA samples and scan rate were found to have a systematic effect on the decomposition temperature of ILs, highlighting the caution needed in reporting TGA results.