The chemical reactivity of phosphonium based ionic liquids (ILs) towards tellurium at temperatures above 220 °C was systematically investigated by a series of dissolution experiments, tracking the solute tellurium species by nuclear magnetic resonance, and characterizing the reaction products by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The initial step is the thermal elimination of an alkyl group of the phosphonium cation of the ILs, most probably via an SN 2 mechanism. The addition of tellurium follows to form trialkylphosphane tellurides as evidenced by 31 P and 125 Te NMR spectroscopic experiments. The trialkylphosphane tellurides can serve as a tellurium reservoir for the formation of metal tellurides, like Bi2 Te3 and Ag2 Te. It was observed that trihexyltetradecylphosphonium chloride ([P6 6 6 14 ]Cl) shows a very weak reactivity that is reflected by a low solubility of tellurium, while trihexyltetradecylphosphonium dicyanamide/decanoate ([P6 6 6 14 ][N(CN)2 ]/[P6 6 6 14 ][decanoate]) and tetrabutylphosphonium decanoate ([P4 4 4 4 ][decanoate]) dissolve tellurium to a much higher extent. We attribute these observations to the different Lewis basicity of the anions of the ILs as main influencing factor.
Keywords: ionic liquids; phosphonium; reactivity; tellurium; trialkylphosphane tellurides.
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