THE WORKING GROUP ON IONIC LIQUIDS: PROPERTIES AND SYNTHETIC APPLICATIONS

The working group was constituted in July 2006 by five Research Units of the Consortium INCA who decided to join their expertises and scientific efforts with the aim to participate to the building up of European networks in view of the VII FP.

List of the participant Research Units

1) University of Bologna Key skills
Contact person Prof. Claudio Trombini Organic synthesis, green organometallic chemistry, stereocontrolled catalysis,
biocatalysis.
phone (+) 39 051 2099513
fax (+) 39 051 2099456
e-mail: claudio.trombini@unibo.it

2) University of Pisa Key skills
Contact person Prof. Cinzia Chiappe Ionic Liquids: synthesis of new ILs, determination of physico-chemical and solvent properties, toxicity. prediction of IL properties using QSPR and recursive neural networks
Phone (+) 39 050 2219669
Fax (+) 39 050 2219660
e-mai:l cinziac@farm.unipi.it

3) University of Perugia Key skills
Contact person Prof. Gianfranco Savelli Synthesis and characterization of amphiphilic ILs.
Sterecontrolled organic synthesis by a multicomponent process in ILs and aqueous medium. ILs as carriers and liquid membranes.
phone (+) 39 075 5855538
fax (+) 39 075 5855538
e-mail: savelli@unipg.it

4) University of Venezia Key skills
Contact person Prof. Maurizio Selva Green multiphase catalysis, organic syntheses in dense CO2
phone (+) 39 041 2348687
fax (+) 39 041 2348584
e-mail: selva@unive.it

5) University of Firenze Key skills
Contact person Prof. Andrea Goti Stereoselective organic synthesis, green oxidation catalytic methods, organometallic reactions.
phone (+) 39 055 4573505
fax (+) 39 055 4573531
e-mail: andrea.goti@unifi.it

The aim of the working group is to plan and provide new synthetic protocols based on the use of ionic liquids (ILs) as reaction media, which represent an improvement on economy and sustainability grounds to current synthetic processes. The main issue is the investigation of stereoselective catalytic processes in the unique coulombic environment offered by ILs, compared to classical molecular solvents.
In particular, these research lines will be considered:
• Solvent effects in stereoselective catalysis (metal-, organo-, and bio-catalysis by means of enzymes) in ILs.
• Task specific ILs for metal catalysis, for example by means of functionalized ILs able to enter the coordination sphere of the catalytically active centre.
• Task specific ILs for organocatalysis, for example by means of properly tailored ILs incorporating chiral amines.
• Solid-phase supported functionalized ILs for heterogeneous applications.
• Organic reactions in the presence of weak organic and inorganic oxygen nucleophiles such as aminoacids and inorganic carbonates will be studied for esterification reactions and in Michael-like addition reactions.
• Multiphase catalysis to scout technological improvements for product separation, catalyst recycling, and other technological processes. Bi- and tri-phasic systems originated by ILs and organic solvents and/or water and/or supercritical CO2, will be examined.
In terms of a modern green approach in product and process development, both new ILs addressed to specific tasks, and extant ILs, will be subjected both to a computational prediction analysis and to experimental evaluation of their properties. Physical properties (viscosity, mp, dielectric properties, etc.) essential for any application, and physical-chemical properties (donor-acceptor, solvent properties, hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity,…) essential to define the IL suitability for the desired application will be thoroughly investigated. The analysis will be successively directed both to the synthetic protocol adopted for the preparation of the IL, and to its ecotoxycological properties, as required by modern life cycle assessment (LCA) approaches.