Delineating Solute-Solvent Interactions in Binary Mixtures of Ionic Liquids in Molecular Solvents and Preferential Solvation Approach

The effect of solute-solvent and solvent-solvent interactions on the preferential solvation of solvatochromic indicators in binary mixtures of ionic liquids with molecular solvents has been investigated. The binary mixtures of the pyridinium-based ionic liquids 1-butylpyridinium tetrafluoroborate ([BP][BF4]), 1-butyl-3-methylpyridinium tetrafluoroborate ([3-MBP][BF4]), and 1-butyl-4-methylpyridinium tetrafluoroborate ([4-MBP][BF4]) with molecular solvents like water, methanol, and dichloromethane have been selected for this investigation. The effect of addition of ionic liquids to molecular solvents on the polarity parameters E-T(N), Kamlet-Taft parameters, hydrogen bond donor ability (HBD) (alpha), hydrogen bond acceptor ability (HBA) (beta), and polarizability (pi*) was obtained. The polarity parameters of the mixture display nonideality on addition of ionic liquids to water and dichloromethane. On the other hand, strong synergetic effects were seen in the ionic liquid-methanol binary mixtures. The preferential solvation models have been employed to analyze the collected data in order to achieve information on solute-solvent interactions in these binary mixtures.