abstract
Cholinium-based ionic liquids are quaternary ammonium salts with a wide range of potential industrial applications. Based on the fact that the cholinium is a complex B vitamin and widely used as food additive, the cholinium-based ionic liquids are generically regarded as environmentally "harmless" and thus, accepted as "non-toxic", although their ecotoxicological profile is poorly known. This work provides new ecotoxicological data for ten cholinium-based salts and ionic liquids, aiming to extend the surprisingly restricted body of knowledge about the ecotoxicity of this particular family and to gain insight on the toxicity mechanism of these compounds. The results reported here show that not all the cholinium tested can be considered harmless towards the test organism adopted. Moreover, the results suggest that the cholinium family exhibits a different mechanism of toxicity as compared to the imidazolium ionic liquids previously described in the literature. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
keywords
DEEP-EUTECTIC-SOLVENTS; FUNCTIONALIZED SIDE-CHAINS; AQUEOUS 2-PHASE SYSTEMS; DIFFERENT HEAD GROUPS; ACETYLCHOLINESTERASE ENZYME; ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY; TOXICITY EVALUATION; IMIDAZOLIUM; WATER; SALTS
subject category
Environmental Sciences & Ecology; Toxicology
authors
Ventura, SPM; Silva, FAE; Goncalves, AMM; Pereira, JL; Goncalves, F; Coutinho, JAP
our authors
Groups
G4 - Renewable Materials and Circular Economy
G5 - Biomimetic, Biological and Living Materials
Projects
acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the financial support from FEDER funds through the program COMPETE and for national fund through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the Projects Pest-C/CTM/LA0011/2013 and PTDC/AAC-AMB/119172/2010. The authors also thank the financial support of FCT considering the post-doctoral Grants SFRH/BPD/79263/2011, SFRH/BPD/79307/2011 and SFRH/BPD/44733/2008 of S.P.M. Ventura, A.M.M. Goncalves and J.L. Pereira, respectively.