Solid-liquid phase behavior of eutectic solvents containing sugar alcohols

Mixtures of carbohydrates are often reported in the literature as deep eutectic solvents yet, in most cases, their solid–liquid phase diagrams are poorly characterized and no evidence is available to validate this classification. In this work, the phase diagrams of the binary systems composed of the sugar alcohols mannitol or maltitol and meso-erythritol, xylitol, or sorbitol, were experimentally determined. The results obtained reveal that these systems have a thermodynamic ideal behavior, questioning their classification as deep eutectic solvents and showing that intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the components of a mixture is not a sufficient condition to prepare deep eutectic solvents. The phase diagrams of the systems composed of mannitol or maltitol and cholinium chloride were also measured in this work. In sharp contrast to the mixtures composed solely by sugar alcohols, and unlike numerous other choline-based eutectic systems reported in the literature, these systems revealed significant deviations to thermodynamic ideality, leading to significant melting temperature depressions. The Cl-OH interaction between cholinium chloride and the sugar alcohols is identified as the main reason for these deviations to ideality, paving the way for the rational choice of hydrogen bond acceptors to prepare deep eutectic solvents.This work was developed within the scope of the project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020, and CIMO-Mountain Research Center, UIDB/00690/2020, both financed by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology(FCT)/MCTES. L.P.S. acknowledges FCT for her PhD grant (SFRH/BD/135976/2018).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tetraalkylammonium Chlorides as Melting Point Depressants of Ionic Liquids

With the (re)advent of eutectic mixtures within the field of deep eutectic solvents, special attention has been given to the measurement of solid–liquid equilibrium (SLE) phase diagrams, supported by the relevant information they can provide on the molecular interactions and melting temperature depression of any given system. As such, this work investigates the SLE phase diagrams of mixtures between ionic liquids and tetraalkylammonium chlorides (methyl, ethyl, and propyl), with the goal of decreasing the melting temperature of ionic liquids and ammonium salts, thus, expanding their application scope. Results show that tetraalkylammonium salts exhibit negative deviations from thermodynamic ideality when mixed with ionic liquids, which are increased by increasing their alkyl chain length and are interpreted in terms of anion exchange mechanisms. In turn, this nonideality contributes greatly to depression of the melting point of the ionic liquids examined. Overall, this work demonstrates that the correct combination of tetraalkylammonium/ILs anions and cations can lead to significant melting point depressions in both species, thus creating new ionic liquid mixtures using an approach akin to that used to form deep eutectic solvents.This work was developed within the scope of the project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020, UIDP/50011/2020 and LA/P/0006/2020, and CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020 and UIDP/00690/2020) and SusTEC (LA/P/0007/2021), financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC (PIDDAC). L.P.S. acknowledges FCT for her Ph.D. Grant (SFRH/BD/135976/2018).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Liquefying Compounds by Forming Deep Eutectic Solvents: A Case Study for Organic Acids and Alcohols

The criterion to distinguish a simple eutectic mixture from a deep eutectic solvent (DES) lies in the deviations to thermodynamic ideality presented by the components in the system. In this work, the current knowledge of the molecular interactions in types III and V DES is explored to liquefy a set of three fatty acids and three fatty alcohols, here used as model compounds for carboxyl and hydroxyl containing solid compounds. This work shows that thymol, a stronger than usual hydrogen bond donor, is able to form deep eutectic solvents of type V with the fatty alcohols studied. This is particularly interesting, since these DES formed are hydrophobic. Regarding type III DES, the results suggest that the prototypical DES hydrogen bond acceptor, cholinium chloride, is unable to induce negative deviations to ideality in the model molecules studied. By substituting choline with tetramethylammonium chloride, it is shown that the choline hydroxyl group is responsible for the difficulty in forming choline-based deep eutectic solvents and that its absence induces strong negative deviations to ideality in the alkylammonium side. Finally, it is demonstrated that tetrabutylammonium chloride acts as a chloride donning agent, causing significant negative deviations to ideality in both fatty acids and alcohols and leading to the formation of deep eutectic solvents of type III.This work was developed within the scope of the projects CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020 and UIDP/50011/2020, financed by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology/MCTES, and CIMO-Mountain Research Center, UIDB/00690/2020, financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC and when appropriate cofinanced by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. L.P.S. acknowledges FCT for her PhD grant SFRH/BD/135976/2018.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Can cholinium chloride form eutectic solvents with organic chloride-based salts?

The high melting point of a large number of organic salts with potential ionic liquid-like properties, hinders their applicability as solvents. Considering the success of cholinium chloride on lowering the melting temperature of several substances and its success on forming deep eutectic solvents, this work studies its mixing with organic chlorides to lower their melting points producing eutectic ionic liquids. The solid-liquid phase diagrams for binary mixtures composed of cholinium chloride and ten organic halides were experimentally measured. Surprisingly, cholinium chloride presented, for all these systems, significant positive deviations from ideal liquid behaviour that restricted its ability to lower the melting points of these mixtures. Only for mixtures with ammonium chloride, tetramethylammonium chloride, bis(2-hydroxyethyl)dimethylammonium chloride or cholinium bromide was cholinium chloride able to significantly lower the melting point of the mixture, but without reaching values close to room temperature (298 K). For a better understanding of the results obtained, the solid-liquid phase diagrams of four alkylammonium chloride-based mixtures were experimentally assessed and used to show that these compounds are better than cholinium chloride at inducing negative deviations from ideality, leading to greater melting point depressions.This work was developed in the scope of the project CICECO e Aveiro Institute of Materials, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007679 (Ref. FCT UID/CTM/50011/2013) and Associate Laboratory LSRELCM, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006984 (Ref. FCT UID/EQU/50020/2019), and project MultiBiorefinery (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016403), all financed by national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) and when appropriate co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. FCT is also acknowledged for funding the project DeepBiorefinery (PTDC/AGRTEC/1191/2014). The authors acknowledge the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/ 2007 e 2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 337753. M.A.R.M. acknowledges financial support from NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000006 - funded by NORTE2020 through PT2020 and ERDF. L.P.S. acknowledges FCT for her PhD grant (SFRH/BD/135976/2018).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Phenolic hydrogen bond donors in the formation of non-ionic deep eutectic solvents: The quest for type v des

Mixtures of non-ionic compounds have been reported as DES but most are just ideal mixtures. In the thymol-menthol system, an abnormal strong interaction was identified stemming from the acidity difference of the phenolic and aliphatic hydroxyl groups. This type of interaction is found to be the key to prepare non-ionic DES, that may be classified as type V.This work was developed in the scope of the project CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007679 (Ref. FCT UID/CTM/50011/2019) and Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006984 (Ref. FCT UID/EQU/50020/2019), and project MultiBiorefinery (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016403), all financed by national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) and when appropriate co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Understanding the formation of deep eutectic solvents: betaine as a universal hydrogen bond acceptor

© 2020 Wiley-VCH GmbH The mechanism of formation of betaine-based deep eutectic solvents (DES) is presented for the first time. Due to its polarity unbalance, it was found that betaine displays strong negative deviations from ideality when mixed with a variety of different organic substances. These results pave the way for a comprehensive design of novel deep eutectic solvents. A connection to biologically relevant systems was made using betaine (osmolyte) and urea (protein denaturant), showing that these two compounds formed a DES, the molecular interactions of which were greatly enhanced in the presence of water.This work was developed within the scope of the projects CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020, financed by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology/MCTES, and CIMO-Mountain Research Center, UIDB/00690/2020, financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC and when appropriate cofinanced by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The role of charge transfer in the formation of type i deep eutectic solvent-analogous ionic liquid mixtures

It was recently shown that tetramethylammonium chloride presented negative deviations to ideality when mixed with tetraethylammonium chloride or tetrapropylammonium chloride, leading to a strong decrease of the melting points of these salt mixtures, in a behavior akin to that observed in the formation of deep eutectic solvents. To better rationalize this unexpected melting point depression between two structurally similar compounds devoid of dominant hydrogen bonding capability, new solid–liquid equilibria data for tetramethylammonium-based systems were measured and analyzed in this work. Molecular dynamics was used to show that the strong negative deviations from ideality presented by these systems arise from a synergetic share of the chloride ions. A transfer of chloride ions seems to occur from the bigger cation in the mixture (which possesses a more disperse charge) to the smaller cation (tetramethylammonium), resembling the formation of metal–chloride complexes in type I deep eutectic solvents. This rearrangement of the charged species leads to an energetic stabilization of both components in the mixture, inducing the negative deviations to the ideality observed. The conclusions presented herein emphasize the often-neglected contribution of charge delocalization in deep eutectic solvents formation and its applicability toward the design of new ionic liquid mixtures.This work was developed in the scope of the project CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007679 (Ref. FCT UID/CTM/50011/2019) Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006984 (Ref. FCT UID/EQU/50020/2019), and project MultiBiorefinery (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016403), all financed by national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) and when appropriate co-financed by the FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. M.A.R.M. acknowledges financial support from NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000006 - funded by NORTE2020 through PT2020 and ERDF. L.P.S. acknowledges FCT for her PhD grant (SFRH/BD/135976/2018).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The role of ionic vs. non-ionic excipients in APIs-based eutectic systems

Aiming to contribute to drug pre-formulation, new eutectic mixtures were developed. Thymol, coumarin, or quaternary ammonium chlorides as excipients, were combined with the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) acetylsalicylic acid, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, ketoprofen, or lidocaine. Their solid-liquid equilibrium (SLE) binary phase diagrams were measured to study eventual phase separation between the compounds, preventing manufacturing problems, and to study the molecular interactions between the APIs and ionic or non-ionic excipients. The Conductor-like Screening Model for Real Solvents (COSMO-RS) capability to predict the SLE of mixtures containing non-ionic excipients was further evaluated. COSMO-RS gives a good quantitative description of the experimental SLE being a tool with great potential in the screening of eutectic systems containing APIs and non-ionic excipients. While thymol presents strong interactions with the APIs, and consequently negative deviations to thermodynamic ideality, systems containing coumarin follow a quasi-ideal behavior. Regarding the ionic excipients, both choline chloride and the tetraalkylammonium chlorides are unable to establish relevant interactions with the APIs, and no significant negative deviations to ideality are observed. The liquefaction of the APIs here studied is favored by using non-ionic excipients, such as thymol, due to the strong interactions it can establish with the APIs.This work was developed within the scope of the project CICECO Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020, and CIMO-Mountain Research Center, UIDB/00690/2020, both financed by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology/MCTES. L.P.S. acknowledges FCT for her PhD grant (SFRH/BD/135976/2018).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Using Molecular Conformers in COSMO-RS to Predict Drug Solubility in Mixed Solvents

This work explores the impact of solute conformers on the conductor-like screening model for real solvents (COSMO-RS) solubility predictions of vanillin and ethyl vanillin in water, short alcohols, and their mixed solvents. Two major conformers of these solutes and changes with solvent polarity were experimentally established by Raman spectroscopy and further confirmed by density functional theory calculations. The COSMO-RS predictions using the individual conformers show a poor description of the solubilities. Estimation with the COSMO-RS default conformer distribution gave better predictions and an intermediate behavior between the predictions obtained using each individual conformer. To further improve the description of the solubilities, the weight of each conformer was fitted to the experimental solid-liquid equilibrium data of the solute in a pure solvent at different temperatures. Better solubility predictions in ternary systems describing solubility maxima were found, suggesting a semipredictive approach to COSMO-RS. This method can predict the liquid-liquid oiling-out effect in the studied binary and ternary systems.This work was developed within the scope of the project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020, UIDP/50011/2020, and LA/P/0006/2020, and CIMOMountain Research Center, UIDB/00690/2020 and LA/P/0007/2020, financed by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology/MCTES. G.T. thanks FCT for his Ph.D. grant (UI/BD/151114/2021). I.W.C. thanks FCT for her Ph.D. grant (2022.12407.BD).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Using COSMO-RS to design choline chloride pharmaceutical eutectic solvents

Deep eutectic solvents (DES) present interesting properties, mostly connected to their solvation ability, and have been subject to much research in the recent past. Currently, the discovery of new eutectic solvents is accomplished by experimentally measuring the eutectic point of random systems, often using choline chloride as a hydrogen bond acceptor. In this work, the eutectic temperatures of new choline chloride-based eutectic systems were experimentally assessed. These data, along with other previously reported in the literature, were used to evaluate a method based on COSMO-RS to predict the eutectic temperature of choline-chloride based mixtures. The predictive methodology herein developed allows for the quick scanning of a large matrix of systems in order to identify those more promising to be in the liquid state at a given temperature. To validate this method, the eutectic temperature of pharmaceutical drug mixtures was predicted and, then, assessed experimentally, showing that COSMO-RS is useful in the design of liquid drug-based formulations.This work was developed in the scope of the project CICECO e Aveiro Institute of Materials, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007679 (Ref. FCT UID/CTM/50011/2013) and Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM, POCI- 01-0145-FEDER-006984 (Ref. FCT UID/EQU/50020/2013), and project MultiBiorefinery (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016403), financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC and when appropriate cofinanced by FEDDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. FCT is also acknowledged for funding the project DeepBiorefinery (PTDC/AGRTEC/1191/2014). Marcos Larriba also thanks Ministerio de Eduación, Cultura y Deporte of Spain for awarding him a José Castillejo postdoctoral mobility grant (CAS17/00018).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio