In situ XPS monitoring of bulk ionic liquid reactions: shedding light on organic reaction mechanisms.

In the swim: until now, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has been predominantly applied to the investigation of near-surface regions. Recent work has now brought XPS into a new domain with the direct monitoring of bulk reactions in the liquid phase. In the monitored reaction, the cation of an ionic liquid (IL) reacts with the anion of another IL.