Visit from Dr Andrew Doherty from Queen’s University of Belfast

Andrew visited our group on the 10th-13th April 2018, and delivered an interesting and overwhelming talk on basic and applications of ionic liquids to students and faculties of NEU on the 12th April. The talk was continued by a question- and-answer session after the presentation. We appreciate Andrew for such a productive visit.

Electro-functional Ionic liquids. Design, synthesis and applications.

Andrew Doherty School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, The Queen’s University of Belfast

Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT9 5AGUnited Kingdom

a.p.doherty@qub.ac.uk

Abstract

Ionic liquids (ILs) are organic/inorganic molten salts that exhibit many unique and favourable physical properties including non-volatility, inherent conductivity, chemical robustness and tuneability of their density, hydrophobicity and solvent strength. To take further advantage IL properties the deliberate incorporation of specific chemical functionality into their structure extends their potential usefulness as “task-specific” ILs; for example, mercury-capturing ILs are already used in the petroleum industry and successful carbon capture with amine-functionalised ILs had been reported extensively.

Incorporating electro-functionality into ILs facilitates their IL application in a host of redox- / electro-chemical and devices. For example, incorporating the ferrocene moiety in IL structure (Figure 1) creates ILs that can communicate directly with redox enzymes are therefore bio-electrocatalytic.

Figure 1 Ferrocene-functionalised imidazolium bis-triflimide IL

Since molecular electrochemistry is a very well-developed field an array of potentially useful functionalities is available for incorporation into IL structure. These include, quinones, n-oxyl radicals, organometallics and metal complexes. This presentation will outline the work to date, discuss the design principles and challenges and speculate on their potential applications from implantable bio-fuel cells to energy harvesting and storage.

Biography:

1989 BSc Chemistry. Chemistry Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland1993 PhD Electro-materials and electro-analysis, Chemistry Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland1993-1995 PDRA Organic Electrochemistry, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK1995-1999 Royal Society University Research Fellow, Electrochemistry in nano-structured media University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK1999-2003 Royal Society University Research Fellow, Ionic Liquid electrochemistry. The Queen’s University of Belfast, UK2003-2018 Faculty, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, The Queen’s University of Belfast

Research interest in electro-materials for energy harvesting and storage, and chemical sensing applications. Supervised 15 PhD students and conducted research for major International companies including Solvay (Belgium) , General Electric (USA) and JFE Corporation (Japan).