Stable nanoreactors for material fabrication using the aggregation of fluorinated ionic liquid surfactants in ionic liquid solvents

•Two series of cationic and anionic fluorinated ionic liquids were synthesized.•These fluorinated ILs, even with short fluorocarbon chain lengths, exhibit superior surface activity in ionic liquid solvents.•The microstructure of these IL-in-IL aggregation systems were characterized by dynamic light scattering and small-angle X-ray scattering.•The nanosize IL-in-IL aggregation system was proposed as an efficient nanoreactor to prepare nanoscale MOFs.•IL-in-IL system has the fascinating role both of nanoreactor and in situ anchoring ionic liquids active sites.