A model to predict maximum tolerable temperatures of metal-oxide-supported 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium based ionic liquids

The thermal stability limits of metal-oxide-supported ionic liquids (Its) with 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium cation, [BMIM](+), on most commonly used metal-oxides, SiO2, TiO2, gamma-Al2O3, and MgO are determined. Data show that stability limits of bulk and metal-oxide-supported ILs linearly increase with increasing acidity of C2 proton on imidazolium ring, controlling the inter-ionic interaction strength. Moreover, data also show that the presence of metal-oxide lowers the stability limits considerably. This effect becomes more significant as the surface acidity of the metal-oxide decreases from SiO2 to MgO This decrease in stability limits with increasing point of zero charge (PZC) of metal-oxide indicates that the interaction between IL and metal-oxide becomes the dominant factor rather than the inter-ionic interactions. Based on these findings a simple mathematical expression was developed as a function of PZC and inter-ionic interaction strength probed by nu(C2H) to predict the stability limits of [BMIM](+)-based ILs immobilized on metal-oxides. Performance of the model was tested on several different ILs supported on different metal-oxides, including Fe2O3 and CeO2. Results show that the model successfully predicts the maximum operating or tolerable temperatures of supported-[BMIM](+)-based ILs with an average relative error less than 4.3%. We suggest that the model developed here can help to choose proper ILs that can tolerate the operating conditions of systems including ILs immobilized on metal oxides, such as in solid catalysts with ionic liquid layer (SCILL) or in supported ionic liquid phase (SILP) catalysts. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.