Novel imidazolium chiral ionic liquids that contain a urea functionality

Nine chiral room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs), which contain a chiral moiety and a urea functionality bonded to a imidazolium ring, have been designed and synthesized. The synthesis of these ionic liquids is concise and practical due to the commercial availability of the starting materials. These novel RTILs were readily prepared from 1-(3-aminopropyl)imidazole and amino acid ester derived isocyanates. We envision that these new chiral RTILs can serve as effective reaction media as well as chiral catalysts, which are presently being investigated in our laboratory.