Ionic liquids for spectroscopy; Spectroscopy for ionic liquids

In this paper we address two aspects of ionic liquids (ILs) that to date have either no or limited studies. They are (1) exploitation of unique features of ILs to develop novel spectroscopic methods which otherwise is not possible and (2) development of novel spectroscopic methods for the sensitive and accurate determination of thermal physical properties of ILs. In the first category, we have successfully developed a novel, highly sensitive and accurate method for the determination of enantiomeric compositions of chiral compounds with different sizes, shape and functional groups including pharmaceutical products. This method is based on the use of a chiral IL which serves both as a solvent and also as a chiral selector. We have also demonstrated that ILs can be used to substantially enhance the sensitivity of thermal lens measurements. In the second category, we have demonstrated that transient grating technique and thermal lens technique can be used for the sensitive, accurate, nondestructive determination of thermal physical properties of ILs.