Studies on electrochemical stability of room temperature ionic liquids

In this paper three air and water-stable room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs): N-butylpyridinium tetrafluoroborate(BPBF4), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate(BMIBF4), and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ethyl sulfate(EMISE) were synthesized. Their electrochemical windows were measured by cyclic voltammetry at 303. 15-343. 15 K. The cyclic voltammograms show the order of windows which represent the electrochemical stability of RTIL is: BPBF4 BMI+ \ - 0.95 V \ >BP+ \0.02 V \. It is very interesting that while the oxidative limit of anion BF4- and the reductive limit of all the cations reduce with the increase of temperature, but the oxidative limit of anion SE- increases.