Acidic imidazole-based ionic liquids in the presence of diisopropyl ether as catalysts for the synthesis of highly reactive polyisobutylene: Effect of ionic liquid nature, catalyst aging, and sonication

A number of imidazole-based acidic (χ(LA)≥0.6) ionic liquids (RmimCl-LA, where R = Et or Bu, LA = AlCl3, AlBr3, iBuAlCl2, FeCl3, GaCl3, and BBr3) has been synthesized and their activity in cationic polymerization of isobutylene has been assessed. Among different ionic liquids tested here, emimCl-AlCl3, emimCl-FeCl3 and emimCl-GaCl3 showed the best results in terms of monomer conversion, exo-olefin end group content and polydispersity. It was...