Stability of ionic liquids under the influence of glow discharge plasmas

The combination of cold plasma and ionic liquids is very promising for many applications in chemical syntheses and nano material fabrication. Using NMR and FTIR analyses, we confirmed for the first time that imidazolium ionic liquids remain stable under the influence of a glow discharge plasma. Reduction of HAuCl4 and PdCl2 using an argon glow discharge was performed at room temperature for the formation of metal nano particles in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate. TEM and XRD showed that the Au particles were hexagonal with average sizes of 32.7 nm, while the Pd particles were spherical with average size of 5.0 nm.