High conductivity and low viscosity are required properties of a material to be considered as a potential electrolyte. The “degree of ionicity” phenomenon in ionic liquids can be quantified and understood in terms of the Walden plot.
In this work, viscosity, density, and electrical conductivity of a protic ionic liquid, Ethylimidazolium nitrate ([EIm][NO3]) pure and doped with lithium nitrate salt were determined or in order to check the possible improvement of the properties of the IL with the salt addition to consider these mixtures as a potential electrolyte, being
Measurements were performed with the following techniques, a TA Instruments AR2000 stress control with a Peltier cooling device and a cone geometry was used for viscosity measurements in a temperature range between (5 and 65) °C and under air atmosphere, density values have been obtained using a vibrating densimeter Anton Paar DSA 5000 and Electrical conductivity has been measured using a conductimeter from CRISON, model GLP31.
As it was expected, viscosity decreases exponentially as temperature increases, and increases with salt content. Similarly, density values decrease linearly as temperature increases, and increases with salt content. From electrical studies an increase of conductivity with temperature and a decrease with salt concentration were observed.
The “degree of ionicity” phenomenon in ionic liquids can be quantified and understood in terms of the Walden plot. From these results, the relationship between the molar ionic conductivity and the reciprocal shear viscosity was analysed through Walden plots in order to determine the utility of these mixtures as potential electrolytes. No significant differences between pure and doped sample Walden plots were observed, being all the analysed samples in the poor ionic liquid region.
