Electrochemical Studies of Sodium Chloride as a Lewis Buffer for Room Temperature Chloroaluminate Molten Salts

Abstract

The reaction of equal molar quantities of 1‐methyl‐3‐ethylimidazolium chloride (MEICl) with results in the formation of a conductive ambient‐temperature ionic liquid that, when investigated voltammetrically, exhibits 4.4V of electroinactivity between the reduction of MEI+ and the oxidation of . When unequal quantities of these reagents are used, however, the resulting melt has a much narrower electrochemical window due either to the formation of the acid (which reduces to Al at potentials that are nearly 2.0V positive of MEI+ reduction) or the base Cl− (which oxidizes to at potentials that are 1.5V negative of oxidation). In this paper we investigate those equilibrium processes that control the chloroacidity in these ionic liquids. Specifically, we show that they undergo an acid exchange reaction