The mesoscopic morphology of binary mixtures of  ethylammonium nitrate (EAN) and methanol is investigated  using neutron/x-ray diffraction and computational techniques, aiming to explore the structural coexistence of two amphiphilic compounds. Surprisingly, at high concentration of methanol (above 70%), these mixtures turn out to be mesoscopically highly heterogeneous. Methanol does not succeed in fully dissociating the ionic liquid that keeps on organizing in a bulk-like fashion. Our study reveals that in methanol-rich mixtures a wide distribution of clusters exists where EAN preserves its bulk, sponge-like morphology. Such a behavior represents the premises to the more dramatic phenomenology observed with longer alcohols that eventually phase separate from EAN. Moreover these results challenge the commonly accepted polar and apolar moieties segregation in ionic liquids/molecular liquids mixtures.

EAN-methanol mixtures: Amphiphile meets amphiphile

248th National Meeting (2014)

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