Preparation and characterization of ionic liquid polymer microspheres [PEEKWC/DMF/CYPHOS IL 101] using the phase-inversion technique

The membrane process concept coupled with phaseinversiontechnique has been successfully applied for the first time for the preparation of ionicliquid (IL) encapsulated microspheres using polyetheretherketone with card group (PEEKWC), trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium chloride[CYPHOSIL101] in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) as dispersing phase and dodecane, ethanol and water as continuous phases. The technique yields porous, spongy, spheres with smooth surface and diameter around 1000 ?m, with morphology and chemical composition strongly affected by preparative conditions. IL loading capacity and subsequent surface topography has been investigated using optical microscopy, FT-IR, SEM, EDX, TGA and SDT.