Development of new oxygen therapeutics using fluorinated ionic liquids

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau Mestre em Engenharia Biomédica

The last decade of the 20th century has yielded a remarkable progress in the field of first generation artificial blood substitutes. Emulsions based on perfluorocarbons (PFCs) became one of the main candidates for a safe and reliable artificial blood substitute. The final objective of the present work is to study the fluorinated ionic liquids (FILs) with the purpose of replacing, partially or totally, the PFCs actually used as artificial blood substitutes, thus providing new fluids with tailored advanced properties. With this goal in mind, the thermophysical and thermodynamic characterization of several FILs, was carried out with the aim to select the most appropriate candidate. This characterization involves the measurement and analysis of the decomposition and melting temperature, density, viscosity, refractive index, and ionic conductivity at atmospheric pressure in a temperature range from 298.15 to 353.15 K. Furthermore, the liquid-liquid equilibria of binary mixtures of PFCs and FILs were studied, at atmospheric pressure in a temperature range usually from 293.15 to 343.15 K. The knowledge of the phase behaviour is crucial to the formulation of emulsions used nowadays as suitable oxygen carriers. Finally, Non-Random Two Liquid (NRTL) thermodynamic model was successfully applied to correlate the behaviour of the binary mixtures of PFCs and FILs