Austen Angell

Abstract:

Glassforming liquids with emphasis on the ionic liquids have been on my mind, since my early graduate student days. At that time (1950’s) the molten silicates and sulfides of Chemical Metallurgy (where they served as scavengers for unwanted components in the metals extraction processes) were still regarded as molecular mixtures in institutions as august as MIT. Then John Bockris and students at Imperial College of Science, London, measured the ionic conductivity, and introduced the term “ionic liquids” for the first time. My M.Sc. Advisor in Chemical Metallurgy at Melbourne University, Mervyn Willis, told me this was the way to go, so I dropped the PbO-Fe2O3 -SiO2 4D phase diagram project I had been working on and joined Bockris’ group (then at the University of Pennsylvania) in 1956. That started a long journey through liquid silicates, molten salts, concentrated aqueous and non-aqueous solutions and molecular liquids and finally back to ionic liquids, touching many personalities and countries. I will try to give some feeling for the highlights of the journey.