Designing interactions across interfaces in ionic liquids

Ionic liquids (ILs) have attracted much attention because of their unusual charac- teristics (vapor pressure, condictivity, etc.). Furthermore, they can be designed to display desired properties specific to an application (task-specific ionic liquid, TSILs). This makes the production and investigation of ionic liquids derivatized with functional group attractive, especially in the view of green chemistry. The first chapter reviews the recent evolution of ionic liquids, and in particular ionic liquids bearing one or several functional groups. In the second chapter, ILs functionalized with two different functional groups were synthesized. The chosen functional groups (alcohol, ether, nitrile, amine) may influence transition metal-catalyzed reaction such as cross-coupling reactions. The ILs synthesized in this chapter were evaluated as solvents in the palladium-catalyzed Heck and Suzuki cross-coupling reactions. Chapter 3 describes our investigation on ionic liquid-catalyzed carbon dioxide and epoxides cyclization (CEC). The synthesis of several IL catalysts, along with their use in the cyclization of styrene oxide with carbon dioxide is detailed. In chapter 4, we discuss the synthesis of ILs functionalized with perfluoroalkyl chains; the synthesis of imidazole precursors is also considered. The last chapter details our efforts towards the formation of self-assembled IL monolayer onto a silica surface. Additionally, we establish the first steps in the synthesis of uncommon IL surface modifiers.