BASIONICS^™, BASF’s Portfolio of Ionic Liquids

Under the trade name BASIONICS™, BASF offers a portfolio of Ionic Liquids—mainly based on imidazolium cations. The BASIONICS™ portfolio opens up a broad range of basic properties of Ionic Liquids and is classified into standard, acidic, basic, liquid at RT and low viscosity products and opens up a wide range of possible applications. All of these products are provided by Sigma-Aldrich on kg scale. The BASIONICS™ portfolio is available from BASF in 100 kg or ton scale with the same specification as offered by Sigma-Aldrich on sufficient notice.

Another important part of BASF’s concept in bringing Ionic Liquids in commercial quantities to the market is the definition of product quality. It is apparent that for any application the right set of specification parameters needs to be defined. For example, an Ionic Liquid that is used for dye-sensitized solar-cells has to be colorless, but if the same Ionic Liquid is used as a non-aqueous electrolyte in a galvanic process, the color has no relevance. In the non-aqueous electrolyte example, another parameter may have to be clearly defined. Hence, BASF works with the following concept: once a customer (either alone or in cooperation with BASF) has identified an Ionic Liquid suitable for a process or an application, the set of specification parameters (purity, by-products, halogen content, color, viscosity, etc.) will be defined in detail. Based on these specifications, the process for the commercial-scale production is designed.

It is important to note that the BASIONICS™ portfolio of Ionic Liquids is a living portfolio! It will be extended, but even more importantly, driven by customer requests. This is true for the cation as well as for the anion. Both parts of the molecule can be designed to the requirements of the specific application the customer demands. With the given technological expertise in chemical processing as well as existing value chains and raw materials from the “Verbund”, BASF is in a position to make a broad portfolio of Ionic Liquids available in commercial quantities and at reasonable prices.