Effect of organic solvents on lowering the viscosity of 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride

Ionic liquids have been widely explored in making biofuels from biomass. Ionic liquid generally has high viscosity that would impede the dissolution of biomass. One of the possible ways is to use the organic solvent to lower the viscosity. In this work, experimental studies on the densities and viscosities of binary mixtures are conducted at atmospheric pressure (0.0967 MPa) in the temperature range from 303.15 K to 353.15 K. The mixtures are comprised by ionic liquid of 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride and organic solvents of N,N-dimethylacetamide, N,N-dimethylformamide, dimethyl sulfoxide and pyridine. The excess properties are calculated to evaluate the interactions of ionic liquid with organic solvents. The Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann equation along with ideal Grunberg-Nissan equation is introduced to correlate the viscosity values. The results are used to quantitatively analyze the effects of organic solvents on lowering the viscosities of ionic liquid.