This study is aimed at characterising the structure, dynamics and thermophysical properties of five alkylammonium carboxylate ionic liquids (ILs) from classical molecular dynamics simulations. The structural features of these ILs were characterised by calculating the site-site radial distribution functions, g(r), spatial distribution functions and structure factors. The structural properties demonstrate that ILs show greater interaction between cations and anions when alkyl chain length increases on the cation or anion. In all ILs, spatial distribution functions show that the anion is close to the acidic hydrogen atoms of the ammonium cation. We determined the role of alkyl group functionalization of the charged entities, cations and anions, in the dynamical behavior and the transport coefficients of this family of ionic liquids. The dynamics of ILs are described by studying the mean square displacement (MSD) of the centres of mass of the ions, diffusion coefficients, ionic conductivities and hydrogen bonds as well as residence dynamics. The diffusion coefficients and ionic conductivity decrease with an increase in the size of the cation or anion. The effect of alkyl chain length on ionic conductivity calculated in this article is consistent with the findings of other experimental studies. Hydrogen bond lifetimes and residence times along with structure factors were also calculated, and are related to alkyl chain length.

We performed classical molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the structure and dynamics of protic ionic liquids, 2-hydroxy ethylammonium acetate, ethylammonium hydroxyacetate, and 2-hydroxyethylammonium hydroxyacetate at ambient conditions. Structural properties such as density, radial distribution functions, spatial distribution functions, and structure factors have been calculated. Dynamic properties such as mean square displacements, as well as residence and hydrogen bond dynamics have also been calculated. Hydrogen bond lifetimes and residence times change with the addition of hydroxyl groups. We observe that when a hydroxyl group is present on the cation, dynamics become very slow and it forms a strong hydrogen bond with carboxylate oxygen atoms of the anion. The hydroxyl functionalized ILs show more dynamic diversity than structurally similar ILs.

We report the structure and dynamics of four ionic liquids (ILs), 2-hydroxyethylammonium formate, bis-(2-hydroxyethyl) ammonium formate, tris-(2-hydroxyethyl) ammonium formate (THEF), and 2-hydroxyethylammonium lactate, employing classical molecular dynamics simulations. The dynamics of ILs are represented by studying mean squared displacements (MSDs), velocity autocorrelation functions (VACFs), and current auto-correlation functions (CACFs). Diffusion coefficients calculated from the VACFs are higher than those obtained from MSDs. The diffusion coefficients calculated from both the methods (MSDs and VACFs) were averaged to calculate the uncorrelated ionic conductivities (ICs). ICs from these two methods agree with the experimental trend. The correlated and uncorrelated ICs were calculated by four methods and compared with experiments. The difference between CACF and center of mass VACF accounts for the correlated motion present in the ILs. The addition of hydroxyalkyl chains on cations causes the dynamics to become slow. The number of hydroxyl groups present on the cations affects the dynamics of ILs studied. A tris-(2-hydroxyethyl) ammonium cation has lower diffusion than any other ions because of the higher molecular weight and number of hydroxyl groups on the cation. We explored the dynamics of hydrogen bonding by calculating the continuous and intermittent hydrogen bond autocorrelation functions. Radial distribution functions between the functional groups of cations and anions reveal the structural arrangement in ILs. The coordination numbers decrease with the increase in the bulkiness of cations due to steric hindrance. Spatial distribution functions of anions around cations show that anions occupy the space around the ammonium hydrogen atoms of the cations. Ion-pair and ion-cage dynamics show that THEF has slower dynamics than the other three ILs and is consistent with MSDs. The inverse of ion-pair and ion-cage lifetimes shows a linear relationship with ICs.

Microscopic structural and dynamic heterogeneities were investigated for three ionic liquids (ILs), tetraethylammonium hydroxide, tetrapropylammonium hydroxide, and tetrabutylammonium hydroxide employing classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.

The correlations present in the ionic liquids (ILs) are essential to interpret the ion association and dynamics processes. The correlated and uncorrelated ionic conductivities reported from two different types of experiments were calculated employing molecular dynamics methods by exercising appropriate care to obtain the diffusive regions. The ionic conductivity is found to be correlated with lifetimes of the ion-pair and ion-cage formation. In this study, the structure and dynamic properties of five cyclic ammonium-based ILs were investigated by comparing the experimental results with the calculated transport properties: (1) 1-allyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium, (2) 1-propyl-1-methylpyrrolidinum, (3) 1-methyl-1-allylpiperidinium, (4) 4-allyl-4-methylmorpholin-4-ium, and (5) 4allyl-4-ethylmorpholin-4-ium with bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide anion as the common anion. We observed the linear relationship between the inverse of ion-pair lifetimes and ionic conductivities. The diffusion coefficients obtained from velocity autocorrelation functions follow a trend similar to that of the experiment as compared to mean square displacements (MSDs). The ionic conductivities from correlated MSD and current autocorrelation functions are compared to the ionic conductivities from the conductometer experiment. The time correlation functions of the ion-pair and ion-cage dynamics were calculated. The correlation functions were used to obtain the lifetimes. Pyrrolidinium-based ILs show lower lifetimes than other ILs, which correlates with the conductivity. Morpholinium-based ILs show higher interaction between ions than other ILs. This result supports the slower dynamics present in morpholinium-based ILs than in other ILs. In this work, our objective is to give atomic insight into the dynamics of IL, which could not be extracted from the experiment, and relate microscopic properties with macroscopic properties.