On the formation of new reverse micelles: a comparative study of benzene/surfactants/ionic liquids systems using...

The microenvironment of the polar core generated in different ionic liquid reverse micelle (IL RM) systems were investigated using the solvatochromic behavior of 1-methyl-8-oxyquinolinium betaine (QB) as an absorption probe and dynamic light scattering (DLS) technique. The novel RM systems consist of two different ILs--1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (bmimBF4) and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide (bmimTf2N)--sequestrated by two different surfactants--Triton X-100 (TX-100) and benzyl-n-hexadecyldimethylammonium chloride (BHDC)--in order to make IL/surfactant/benzene RMs. The effect of the variation of Ws (Ws=[IL]/[surfactant]) on the QB spectroscopy was used to characterize these nonaqueous RMs. DLS results confirm the formation of these IL RM systems because increasing Ws increases the droplet sizes. Moreover it is demonstrated that the structure of the sequestrated ILs depends strongly on the type of surfactant use to create the RMs.