Semi-Empirical Methods to Predict the Physical Properties of Ionic Liquids: An Overview of Recent Developments

Abstract

The field of ionic liquids (ILs) has shown rapid growth in recent years. Much of this work has involved the synthesis of new ILs and their application in an ever-increasing number of areas. In contrast, there have been relatively few studies that investigate and attempt to predict the fundamental physical properties of ILs, which are extremely important for their applications. The quantitative prediction of the physical properties of unknown salts remains an important goal in IL research. This will allow the design of new ILs with specific properties tailored for particular applications, without the need for time-consuming trial and error syntheses. Recently, several studies have shown that it is possible to make predictions of the physical properties of ILs e.g. melting points, conductivities, viscosities, densities, surface tensions and refractive indices. This paper gives an overview of these semi-empirical methods and makes some comparisons regarding the accuracy of their predictions and their applicability to predicting the properties of unknown salts.