ABSTRACT
This paper presents cytotoxicity data of selected imidazolium ionic liquids evaluated in vitro on the human tumor cell line HeLa. It was found that for 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium entities the toxicity depends strongly on the associated anion; EC50 values are lowest for tetrafluoroborate. No direct dependence of the reduced effect concentration was found on elongating the short, methyl chain to ethyl or n-hexyl. Only for the ionic liquid with an n-decyl chain, the longest one studied, did higher hydrophobicity result in a EC50 one order of magnitude lower than that obtained with the n-butyl entity. The effect concentrations of imidazolium ionic liquids in the HeLa system used are lower than the values obtained for conventional organic solvents such as dichloromethane, toluene or xylene.
