Salts dissolved in salts: ionic liquid mixtures

Solvents and solutions are ubiquitous in chemistry. For instance, in synthesis the solvent allows reagents to mix intimately so that reactions between these may occur. Consequently, understanding how solutes behave in solutions has been one of the major themes of chemistry throughout its history. Ionic liquids (liquid salts) are an exciting recent addition to the range of available solvents. Here we show that these solvents interact with dissolved salts to give solutions that are completely different from those of salts in either traditional organic solvents or water. Observations of these ideal salt solutions will require new models of solvation and polarity and have the potential to lead to new chemical processes.