Capillary electrophoretic separation of cationic constituents of imidazolium ionic liquids

A capillary electrophoretic method for resolving selected imidazolium ionic liquid cations is reported. The method, in which citric buffer is used as the running electrolyte, is simple and reproducible. The separation of a standard mixture is in linear accordance with the relative molecular mass (M(r)) of solutes regardless of the type of substitution (alkyl or aryl). The theoretical prediction of compounds as yet not analyzed is therefore possible; however, cations with identical molecular masses are inseparable with this method. Nevertheless, the method's quantitative analytical performance was excellent. The paper also discusses the applicability of a method for tracking the photodegradation kinetics of an exemplary ionic liquid.