Formation of Deep Eutectic Solvents by Phenols and Choline Chloride and Their Physical Properties

Novel deep eutectic solvents (DES) based on three different hydrogen-bond donors (HBD), namely phenol, o-cresol, and 2,3-xylenol, and choline chloride (ChCl) were successfully synthesized with different mole ratios of HBD to ChCl. Melting temperature of these DES were measured. Compared with an ideal mixture of the two components, the freezing temperature of the DES depresses greatly from (120 to 127) K. The physical properties, such as density, viscosity, and conductivity of phenol-based and o-cresol-based DES were determined at atmospheric pressure and temperatures from (293.2 to 318.2) K at an interval of 5 K. The results show that the type of HBD, the mole ratio of HBD to ChCl, and temperature have great influences on the physical properties of DES. Densities and viscosities of DES formed by phenol and ChCl decrease with increases of temperature and phenol content. The conductivities of the DES are from (1.40 to 7.06) mS·cm–1, similar to that of room temperature ionic liquids. The conductivities of the DES increase with an increase of temperature, and reach the highest values at phenol to ChCl mole ratios of 4.00 to 5.00. The temperature dependence of densities and conductivities for these DES were correlated by an empirical second-order polynomial with relative deviations less than 0.91 %, and the viscosities were fitted to the VTF equation with relative deviations less than 0.52 %.