120
Views
2
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Jürgen Troe Special Issue

On the in situ formation of carbenes in ionic liquids

, , & ORCID Icon
Article: e1974589 | Received 10 May 2021, Accepted 19 Aug 2021, Published online: 13 Sep 2021
 

Abstract

Ionic liquids are considered as tunable designer liquids that may provide the perfect environment or active species for chemical reactions. N-Heterocyclic carbenes are known to be important organocatalysts enabling novel and specific routes for general synthetic strategies. There has been a lot of speculation about the role, stability, and the existence of in situ formed carbenes in ionic liquids. Here, we show that cation stabilised carbenes can exist in room temperature ionic liquids as reactive intermediates detectable with liquid microbeam IR laser desorption mass spectrometry. The experimental results were supported by density functional theory. Intriguingly, we also found that carbenes appear to correlate with and may be the origin of strong chemisorption of carbon dioxide in ionic liquids.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Deutsche Bundestiftung Umwelt (DBU) for a PhD-fellowship (MW) and Dr. K. Siefermann and Dr. Annegret Stark for helpful discussions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.