The Role of Weak Bonds in Ionic Liquids and Zeolites

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Ionic liquids are molten salts which are liquids at moderate temperatures (less than 100 degrees Celsius). They are important modern solvents because they do not evaporate, which lowers environmental impact costs for many reactions (their use constitutes "green" chemistry), and they allow for easier product separations. Newer applications are in catalysis and as electrolytes in batteries, but more research is needed to assist development in these important areas. The keys to how these liquids function are the weak bonds that they make with molecules dissolved in them, such as carbocations (for petroleum refining) and carbon dioxide (for curbing greenhouse gas emissions). Our tools of investigation will be theoretical development (pencil-and-paper) and computations. We will focus on three particular lines of research.