Electronic structural properties of amino/hydroxyl functionalized imidazolium-based bromide ionic liquids

Abstract

Electronic structural properties of the three different imidazolium-based ionic liquids, namely, 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium bromide (C4mimBr), 1-(4-hydroxybutyl)-3-methylimidazolium bromide (C4OHmimBr), and 1-(4-aminobutyl)-3-methylimidazolium bromide (C4NH2mimBr), were investigated with density functional theory at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level. The conformations of the mentioned cations were fully studied first using CONFLEX 8.A program. The quantum theory of atoms in molecules was used to investigate the nature of intramolecular interactions. The counterpoise-corrected ion pairs binding energies were obtained at the same level of theory. Natural bond orbital analyses show that the largest intra-molecular interaction comes from the orbital overlap between n(N1) and π* (N4–C5) in the mentioned compounds. The energy levels of frontier molecular orbitals (FMOs) are displayed. The global quantum chemical descriptors are also calculated based on the energy values of FMOs.

Keywords

• ionic liquids
• conformations
• frontier molecular orbitals
• intramolecular interactions