Fluid Phase Equilibria 334 (2012) 157–165 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Fluid Phase Equilibria j our na l ho me page: www.elsevier.com/locate/fluid Densities, speeds of sound and 1 H NMR spectroscopic studies for binary mixtures of 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium based ionic liquids with ethylene glycol monomethyl ether at temperature from T = (288.15–318.15) K Amalendu Pal , Bhupinder Kumar Department of Chemistry, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra 136119, Haryana, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 3 April 2012 Received in revised form 29 June 2012 Accepted 1 August 2012 Available online 10 August 2012 Keywords: Room temperature ionic liquids Ethylene glycol monomethyl ether Density Speeds of sound 1 H NMR a b s t r a c t Physical properties such as densities and speeds of sound of 1-hexyl-3-methylimmidazolium based room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs); with bromide (Br), tetrafluoroborate (BF 4 ), hexafluorophosphate (PF 6 ), as anions in ethylene glycol monomethyl ether (EGMME), over the whole composition range were mea- sured at T = (288.15–318.15) K and at atmospheric pressure. Experimental densities were used to obtain excess molar volumes, V E . The V E values for each of the mixture studied were negative and decreased with increase in temperature with the following order: [PF 6 ] > [BF 4 ] > [Br]. Deviations in isentropic com- pressibility,  S were calculated from the experimental speeds of sound and densities. The  S values were negative over the entire range of composition for all mixtures with the exception of ILs contain- ing [Br] and [BF 4 ] anions, which changes sign from negative to positive at low temperatures. Both V E and  S were fitted to the Redlich–Kister polynomial equation to obtain the binary coefficients and the standard errors. The molecular scale interactions between (ILs) and EGMME were investigated through 1 H NMR spectroscopy. NMR chemical shifts for various protons of (ILs) or EGMME molecules and their deviations show hydrogen bonding interactions of varying strengths between (ILs) and EGMME in their binary mixtures. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Ionic liquids (ILs) considered as the potential greener replace- ments for commonly used volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and have received attention in many scientific investigations due to the large variety of applications of this new class of liquids in industry and applied chemistry [1–6]. Also, the properties of such liquids can be varied by changing their anions or cations and hence are termed as designer solvents. Moreover, we can enhance their properties by addition of a co-solvent which can be effectively used in vari- ous industrial applications. Despite their importance and interest, detailed knowledge of the thermodynamic behavior of the mix- tures of ionic liquids with organic solvents, which is of immense importance in various chemical processes, is still limited. On the other hand, alkoxyalkanols, which are amphiphilic organic sol- vents have been used in many chemical processes. It is of great importance to understand the mixing behavior of ILs in the organic solvents and to provide accurate physicochemical data. Therefore, Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 1744 239765; fax: +91 1744 238277. E-mail address: palchem@sify.com (A. Pal). thethermodynamic behavior of the mixtures of ILs with organic solvents is rapidly gaining importance [7–12]. From our earlier studies we have found that various types of interactions prevail in the binary mixtures of RTILs and organic sol- vents. Many thermodynamic and spectroscopic properties such as density, speed of sound, UV–vis, FT-IR, Fluorescence, 1 H NMR have been studied to understand the exact nature of the solute–solvent interactions for different ILs with alkoxyalkanols [13–17]. In the present work, the procedure to synthesize some ionic liq- uids of different anions, such as 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide [C 6 mim][Br], 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluo- roborate [C 6 mim][BF 4 ], 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexaflu- orophosphate [C 6 mim][PF 6 ], is described. Physical properties such as density and speed of sound of three ILs with ethy- lene glycol monomethyl ether [EGMME] have been measured at T = (288.15–318.15) K. Molecular structure and molecular weight of (ILs) and EGMME is given in Scheme 1. This study examines how the changes in the anions without changing the alkyl chain length of the ILs affect the volumetric and derived properties of binary mixtures involving 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium based ILs. There are certain changes in excess properties with temperature, compo- sition and anions from which we have analyzed and presented the influence of these factors on the thermodynamic and spectroscopic 0378-3812/$ see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fluid.2012.08.002