Thermal decomposition of imidazolium-based ionic liquid binary mixture: Processes and mechanisms

Ionic liquids (ILs) have numerous properties with a wide range of applications as an advanced or specialized material. Mixtures of ILs can further optimize their correlative properties. In this study, the thermal stability of imidazolium-based IL binary mixtures was evaluated by alternating the compound mode and molar fraction (3:7, 5:5, and 7:3) of parent ILs. We found that the thermal stability of the mixtures considerably decreased through a three-step decomposition for specific compound modes. To understand the thermal behaviors of the IL binary mixtures, we argue that the thermal stability of the IL binary mixtures depended on which compounds the ions in the mixture constituted, and that equal molar fractions are deserved to notice for designing IL mixtures. The results of this study can help in the design of relatively stable IL mixtures for proactive loss prevention in the subsequent industrial applications.