Dr. Keven Miller, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Murray State University, addressed a talk on Adventures in Ionic Liquids: From Reactions to Solvents to Macromolecular Architectures to students, faculty, and members of the UT Martins Student Members of the American Chemical Society (SMACS) last Thursday.

Dr. Miller says, Ionic liquids are salts that exist in the liquids state. Typical salts (like sodium chloride - table salt) are highly crystalline and require extremely high temperatures to melt. Ionic liquids are poorly coordinated and the melting point is below 100 degrees Celcius, so they are not fully crystalline. Although ionic liquids have been around for nearly a century, the term ionic liquid has been accepted only within the last 15-20 years. Ionic liquids are used in a number of industrial processes such as acid scavenging and cellulose processing. More recently (last 10-15 years) ILs (ionic liquids) have been used more as greener replacements for volatile organic solvents in common organic reactions. Ionic liquids have negligible volatility, flammability and a lower toxicity profile. Some ionic liquids have even been shown to be biodegradable.

Dr. Miller goes on to name the four main classes of ionic liquids cations. They include ammonium, imidazolium, pyridinium, and phosphinium. Anions are not mentioned because they can vary widely.

Dr. Miller then explained the Michael Addition. The Michael Addition is a versatile, efficient method of forming new carbon-carbon bonds. According to Dr. Miller, base catalysts such as carbonate and bicarbonate can range from weak, to moderate, the amine group, to strong, the amides and hydrides groups.

The reactions are done in volatile toxic solvents. Dr. Millers interest on this topic of Michael Addition is how fast the reactions work and if a reaction will even occur. In model ionic liquids, changing the cation will effect the cation-anion interactions because the larger bulky anions tend to result weaker cation-anion interactions but improved organic solubility.

Dr. Miller tested the Michael Addition and found out it was successful. The reactions occurred faster than expected.

The reason for this enhanced rate is unclear but could be due to a number of different factors, says Dr. Miller.

Michael Additions proceeds well in ionic liquid solvents. Future studies for Dr. Miller in response to the Michael Addition is to pursue other anions with phosphonium cations.

Research interests include the applications of ionic liquids in organic and polymer/materials chemistry.

Senior Engineering major Jareth Embrey had this to say about Dr. Millers talk: Most people think research presentations are about a finished product, but this was really insightful for a work still in progress.

Original post:
Chemistry professor to speak on ionic liquids