CAREER: Structural and dynamical heterogeneity in room-temperature ionic liquids. How do we engineer them to obtain the most solvent induced excited-state photo-selectivity?

爱荷华大学的克劳迪奥·马古利斯得到了理论和计算化学项目的支持，该项目正在开发室温离子液体(RTIL)的分子水平理论。这些溶剂之所以令人感兴趣，是因为它们可以溶解范围广泛的极性和非极性溶质，尽管它们在室温下是液体，但它们的蒸汽压非常低。因此，它们作为非挥发性的良好溶剂在绿色化学应用中很有希望。Marguis已经开发了一种描述这些离子液体的力场，现在正在研究最近通过实验观察到的一些RTIL的慢动力学。该职业项目正在调查这些RTIL的结构异质性，目标是预测哪组阳离子和阴离子将表现出最大的这种异质性。这项工作正在对绿色化学技术的发展产生更广泛的影响，这是该项目的一个特点，马古利斯在面向地区高中少数民族学生的外联计划中强调了这一点。

Claudio Margulis of the University of Iowa is supported by the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry program for research that is developing a molecular- level theory of room - temperature ionic liquids (RTILs). These solvents are of interest because they can dissolve a wide range of polar and non-polar solutes and although they are liquid at room temperature, their vapor pressure is very low. Thus, they hold promise in green chemistry applications as good solvents that are non - volatile. Margulis has developed a force field for the description of these ionic liquids and is now investigating the slow dynamics that have recently been observed experimentally for some RTILs. The CAREER project is investigating the structural heterogeneity of these RTILs and the goal is to predict which set of cations and anions will exhibit the largest such heterogeneity. The work is having a broader impact on the development of green chemistry techniques, a feature of the project which is emphasized by Margulis in an outreach program to minority students at area high schools.