Thermophysical properties of energetic ionic liquids/nitric acid mixtures: insights from molecular dynamics simulations

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of mixtures of the room temperature ionic liquids (ILs) 1-butyl-4-methyl imidazolium [BMIM]/dicyanoamide [DCA] and [BMIM][NO3(-)] with HNO3 have been performed utilizing the polarizable, quantum chemistry based APPLE&P(®) potential. Experimentally it has been observed that [BMIM][DCA] exhibits hypergolic behavior when mixed with HNO3 while [BMIM][NO3(-)] does not. The structural, thermodynamic, and transport properties of the IL/HNO3 mixtures have been determined from equilibrium MD simulations over the entire composition range (pure IL to pure HNO3) based on bulk simulations. Additional (non-equilibrium) simulations of the composition profile for IL/HNO3 interfaces as a function of time have been utilized to estimate the composition dependent mutual diffusion coefficients for the mixtures. The latter have been employed in continuum-level simulations in order to examine the nature (composition and width) of the IL/HNO3 interfaces on the millisecond time scale.