The Air Force is seeking new fuels to replace toxic hydrazines, commonly used in satellite thrusters, and to serve as the emitted material in electric propulsion systems. Ionic liquids (ILs) are potential candidates for both. However, selecting the best cation-anion combination for each thruster design, or for use as a duel fuel is a challenging problem. Calculations of ILs are not sufficiently accurate to be used predictively. Our research focuses on using spectroscopy of gas phase ionic liquids in order to asses various computational methods. I will present UV and IR spectroscopy of the [EMIM]+[TF2N]- ion pair, a model ionic liquid. We use vibrational spectroscopy to probe the interaction between the cation and the anion and the structure of the molecule and consequently the vibrational modes. Comparison to various levels of theory broadens our understanding of the experimental results and lays the basis for which levels of theory are needed to accurately model ILs.

Spectroscopic studies of gas-phase ionic liquids

248th National Meeting (2014)

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