Surface structures of equimolar mixtures of imidazolium-based ionic liquids using high-resolution Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy

Surface structures of equimolar mixtures of imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs) having a common cation (1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium ([C4MIM]) or 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium ([C6MIM])) and different anions (bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide ([TFSI]), hexafluorophosphate ([PF6]) or chlorine) are studied using high-resolution Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (HRBS). Both cations and anions have the same preferential orientations at the surface as in the pure ILs. In the mixture, the larger anion is located shallower than the smaller anion. The [TFSI] anion is slightly enriched at the surface relative to [PF6] with coverage of similar to 60% for the equimolar mixtures of [C4(6)MIM] [TFSI] and [C4(6)MIM] [PF6]. No surface segregation is observed for [C6MIM] [TFSI](0.5)[Cl](0.5) and [C6MIM] [PF6](0.5)[Cl](0.5). These results are different from the recent TOF-SIMS measurement where very strong surface segregation of [TFSI] was concluded for the mixture of [C4MIM] [TFSI] and [C4MIM] [PF6]. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.