Molecular-level Structure at the Surface of Ionic Liquids

Abstract

Ionic liquids (ILs) are expected to be promising alternatives for molecular organic solvents in various fields. It is of crucial importance to clarify the structures at IL interfaces and furthermore to design the functions of IL interfaces. This novel liquids that do not contain neutral molecules have been found to have specific structures at their interfaces. In the present paper, a series of studies on the structure at IL interfaces by the author will be introduced. Two methods that can selectively and sensitively extract the information of interfacial structure, X-ray reflectometry (XR) and molecular dynamics simulation (MD), are complementarily used to reveal the structure at IL interfaces.