Pressure-induced mesoscopic disorder in protic ionic liquids: first computational study

Abstract

It has been recently shown that pressure may affect the mesoscopic heterogeneity in aprotic ionic liquids, owing to the long alkyl chain folding on itself. Here we explore protic ionic liquids, using classical molecular dynamics. These compounds have shorter and stiffer alkyl chains, harder to fold. We observed that high pressure affects the mesoscopic structure of the studied chemicals and, indeed, the effect may be ascribed to chain folding.