Synthesis, structure and properties of oligomeric ionic liquids of highly branched structure and special features of their self-arrangement

Synthesis, features of structural organization and behavior in aqueous solution of amphiphilic reactive aprotic cationic oligomeric ionic liquids obtained on the basis of a mixture of oligomeric amino- and hydroxyl-containing silsesquioxanes were considered. The dependence of the glass transition temperature, the value of ionic conductivity, self-organization in dilute aqueous solutions and the ζ-potential on the length of the alkyl substituent near the quaternary nitrogen atom in the composition of the synthesized compounds was shown. It was found that quaternization of the tertiary nitrogen atom of the starting oligomer causes a sharp decrease in the glass transition temperature. The value of the latter increases with an increase in the length of the hydrophobic alkyl fragments due to their association. In this case the ionic conductivity under anhydrous conditions decreases and at temperatures above 100°C drops by almost an order of magnitude. The maximum conductivity was reached for the oligomeric ionic liquid with the short alkyl chain and its value was 10-3 S/cm at 120oC. In dilute aqueous solutions the synthesized oligomeric ionic liquids with the short alkyl chain form aggregates with an average size of 100 nm while increasing the length of the alkyl chain prevents aggregation of silsesquioxane nuclei and leads to formation of unimolecular micelles with an average size of 3 nm