Preliminary assessment of the sorption of some alkyl imidazolium cations as used in ionic liquids to soils and Sediments

The growing interest in the use of ionic liquids may soon result in their presence in the environment. In any evaluation of the environmental fate of these compounds, their sorption on soil is an essential parameter. This paper reports data on the sorption of ionic liquids on selected soils and marine sediments. Batch-equilibrium adsorption tests were conducted on a selection of imidazolium ionic liquid entities. All the compounds were strongly sorbed on all the soils under study. It seems that, regardless of the hydrophobic interaction with organic matter, non-hydrophobic interactions contribute to the sorption of these compounds to soils and sediments, which usually tends to occur with highly polar ionized groups such as quaternary moieties.