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Published on: April 17, 2018
Mixing oil and water with ionic liquids: bicontinuous microemulsions under confinement
Hojun Kim1, Mengwei Han, Sarith R Bandara
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL-61801 Urbana, USA. cecilial@illinois.edu.
Abstract:
We report the structural transition of a phosphonium ionic liquid-based microemulsion from the bulk to nanoconfined between atomically flat micas. Upon the nanoconfinement, we observed a firmly surface-adsorbed ionic liquid film that stabilizes the nanoconfined microemulsion. Further confinement (<11 nm) induces rearrangements in the microemulsion culminating into two well-ordered layers with slow dynamics.
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