flew me out to their laboratories in Colorado. What I didn’t know then was the
reason they wanted the compound I was supposedly making was to make batteries
in room-temperature molten salts. It was a complex coincidence. John Wilkes was
also there, and Chuck Hussey from Mississippi was visiting the lab at the same
time. And they taught me everything they knew about these room-temperature
molten salts: how to make them, purify them, work with them—they were extremely generous. And these were just extremely interesting materials. My one
original thought was, ‘I bet these would be pretty good solvents for doing chemistry
with.’ That was 1981. That’s where everything started.”
Ken did not discover ionic liquids. In fact, they were discovered a century before
the 1980s, although they were not called ionic liquids straight away. What Ken did
was spot their huge potential and popularised them. The main advantage of ionic
liquids is that they have negligible vapour pressure, unlike molecular solvents,
which are dangerous, flammable, and environmentally unfriendly. Ionic liquids
therefore could potentially belong to the category of green solvents. Ionic liquids
are not intrinsically green in their own right, but they can help to make the process
greener by bringing their advantages and changing the philosophy of a conventional
process performed using organic solvents.
At that time in the late 1980s, the Green Chemistry movement started raising
concerns about solvent usage as a result of the U.S. Clean Air Legislation: solvents
had high vapour pressures, and it is hard to imagine organic chemistry reactions and
chemical processes without the use of organic solvents. Ken realised that these ionic
liquids could be the new category of solvents that could change the way chemistry
worked. Additionally, molecular solvents would dissolve compounds in a different
manner than ionic liquids, as they have different bonds in them (prevalently,
covalent). Ionic liquids are dominated by coulombic (or ionic) bonds, so they can
dissolve compounds that cannot be easily dissolved using organic solvents, for
instance, kerogen, cellulose, wood, bananas and their skin, and so forth. Hence,
they gained the name of “super solvents”.
Ken managed to secure funding to carry out research on ionic liquids:
“At that time, I was in Oxford. I moved to the University of Sussex to a
Lectureship in Experimental Chemistry, as it was called. And it takes a year or two
to get up and running. I then sent an application to the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), our equivalent of your NSF. It was a proposal
for ionic liquids and catalytic chemistry, and we got a gamma rating. Now, alpha
means this is wonderful and if we have the money, we will fund you. Alpha-plus
means we will definitely fund you. Beta means it has some merit, but it may not get
funding. Gamma means never darken our doors again; we never want to hear from
you, ever. Along with our gamma rating, they sent the referees report. Referee #1
said, ‘this chemistry is so complicated it will never work’. Referee #2 said, ‘this
chemistry is so trivial, it’s not worth doing’. Referee #3 said, ‘why isn’t he doing
the neutron diffraction of vanadium bronzes?’, which had no relationship to our
proposal. He obviously had the wrong proposal in front of him.
So, we were basically rejected as a joke. And the EPSRC is supposed to fund
speculative and interesting work. A year and a half later, we took the same proposal
Dedication to Prof. Kenneth “Ken” Richard Seddon
ix
reason they wanted the compound I was supposedly making was to make batteries
in room-temperature molten salts. It was a complex coincidence. John Wilkes was
also there, and Chuck Hussey from Mississippi was visiting the lab at the same
time. And they taught me everything they knew about these room-temperature
molten salts: how to make them, purify them, work with them—they were extremely generous. And these were just extremely interesting materials. My one
original thought was, ‘I bet these would be pretty good solvents for doing chemistry
with.’ That was 1981. That’s where everything started.”
Ken did not discover ionic liquids. In fact, they were discovered a century before
the 1980s, although they were not called ionic liquids straight away. What Ken did
was spot their huge potential and popularised them. The main advantage of ionic
liquids is that they have negligible vapour pressure, unlike molecular solvents,
which are dangerous, flammable, and environmentally unfriendly. Ionic liquids
therefore could potentially belong to the category of green solvents. Ionic liquids
are not intrinsically green in their own right, but they can help to make the process
greener by bringing their advantages and changing the philosophy of a conventional
process performed using organic solvents.
At that time in the late 1980s, the Green Chemistry movement started raising
concerns about solvent usage as a result of the U.S. Clean Air Legislation: solvents
had high vapour pressures, and it is hard to imagine organic chemistry reactions and
chemical processes without the use of organic solvents. Ken realised that these ionic
liquids could be the new category of solvents that could change the way chemistry
worked. Additionally, molecular solvents would dissolve compounds in a different
manner than ionic liquids, as they have different bonds in them (prevalently,
covalent). Ionic liquids are dominated by coulombic (or ionic) bonds, so they can
dissolve compounds that cannot be easily dissolved using organic solvents, for
instance, kerogen, cellulose, wood, bananas and their skin, and so forth. Hence,
they gained the name of “super solvents”.
Ken managed to secure funding to carry out research on ionic liquids:
“At that time, I was in Oxford. I moved to the University of Sussex to a
Lectureship in Experimental Chemistry, as it was called. And it takes a year or two
to get up and running. I then sent an application to the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), our equivalent of your NSF. It was a proposal
for ionic liquids and catalytic chemistry, and we got a gamma rating. Now, alpha
means this is wonderful and if we have the money, we will fund you. Alpha-plus
means we will definitely fund you. Beta means it has some merit, but it may not get
funding. Gamma means never darken our doors again; we never want to hear from
you, ever. Along with our gamma rating, they sent the referees report. Referee #1
said, ‘this chemistry is so complicated it will never work’. Referee #2 said, ‘this
chemistry is so trivial, it’s not worth doing’. Referee #3 said, ‘why isn’t he doing
the neutron diffraction of vanadium bronzes?’, which had no relationship to our
proposal. He obviously had the wrong proposal in front of him.
So, we were basically rejected as a joke. And the EPSRC is supposed to fund
speculative and interesting work. A year and a half later, we took the same proposal
Dedication to Prof. Kenneth “Ken” Richard Seddon
ix