Investigation of the local structure of mixtures of an ionic liquid with polar molecular species through molecular dynamics: cluster formation and angular distributions

In this work, we used molecular dynamics simulations to analyze in detail the spatial distributions of the different constituents in mixtures of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate with three polar molecular species: water and two alcohols of different chain lengths (methanol and ethanol). In particular, we report results regarding the influence of the chosen species and its concentration on the formation of ionic and molecular clusters over the whole miscibility range, as well as on the angular distribution of polar molecules around the anion and the cation in these systems. Both analyses showed that addition of a molecular species breaks down the polar network of the pure ionic liquid in clusters whose mean size decreases progressively as more molecules are added. At very high concentrations of the molecular species, the ions are found to be isolated in mixtures with water and methanol, but they tend to form pairs in ethanol. In mixtures with water we identified large clusters that form a water network at very high water concentrations, while at low water concentrations polar molecules tend to form smaller aggregates. In contrast, in mixtures with alkanols there is no evidence of the formation of large alcohol clusters at any concentration. Spatial order in alcohol was also studied by means of the Kirkwood G factor, reaching the conclusion that the angular correlations which appear in pure alcohols due to dipole interactions are destroyed by the ionic liquid, even when present only in tiny amounts.