Ionic liquid behavior on rough surfaces

This study focuses on the effects of surface heterogeneities on the behaviour of ionic liquids. Ionic liquids have shown great promise as both electrolyte replacements and as lubricants in industrial applications. Previous studies have focused on ionic liquid behaviour on flat substrates. Understanding the behavior of ionic liquids (ILs) either confined between rough surfaces or in rough nanoscale pores is of great relevance to extend studies performed on ideally flat surfaces to real applications. This work is comprised of three sets of experiments to determine the effects of nanoscale roughness and chemical surface properties on IL static and dynamic behavior. The first is an extensive investigation of the structural forces between two surfaces with well-defined roughness (