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Review
. 2020 Nov 9;25(21):5207.
doi: 10.3390/molecules25215207.

Industrial Applications of Ionic Liquids

Adam J Greer  1 , Johan Jacquemin  2   3 , Christopher Hardacre  1
Affiliations
Review

Industrial Applications of Ionic Liquids

Adam J Greer et al. Molecules. .

Abstract

Since their conception, ionic liquids (ILs) have been investigated for an extensive range of applications including in solvent chemistry, catalysis, and electrochemistry. This is due to their designation as designer solvents, whereby the physiochemical properties of an IL can be tuned for specific applications. This has led to significant research activity both by academia and industry from the 1990s, accelerating research in many fields and leading to the filing of numerous patents. However, while ILs have received great interest in the patent literature, only a limited number of processes are known to have been commercialised. This review aims to provide a perspective on the successful commercialisation of IL-based processes, to date, and the advantages and disadvantages associated with the use of ILs in industry.

Keywords: commercial processes; designer solvents; industrial applications; ionic liquids; synthesis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Examples of common cations and anions found in ionic liquids, and their preferred abbreviations.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Illustration of some well-known applications of ionic liquids.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The number of publications and patents each year from 1990 to 2019, found in the SciFinderTM database containing the concept “ionic liquid”. The addition of further keywords, such as “room temperature molten salt”, was found to be insignificant.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Development of commercialised IL-based processes.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The CBILS® (Carbonate-Based Ionic Liquid Synthesis) route for a 1,3-dialkylimidazolium based IL [196].
Figure 6
Figure 6
The number of ionic liquid publications in 2009, 2014 and 2019, over a selection of topics found using the “Categorize” function in SciFinderTM. The data have been normalised by the total number of publications in that particular year.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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