In recent years researchers have started to explore a particular class of organic solvents called room temperature ionic liquids - or simply ionic liquids - to identify their unique advantages for biocatalysis. Because they lack vapour pressure, ionic liquids hold potential as green solvents. Furthermore, unlike organic solvents of comparable polarity, they often do not inactivate enzymes, whic...

Solidification of fluidic ionic liquids into porous materials yields porous ionic networks that combine the unique characteristics of ionic liquids with the common features of polymers and porous materials. This minireview reports the most recent advances in the design of porous ionic liquids. A summary of the synthesis of ordered and disordered porous ionic liquid-based nanoparticles or membra...

Within the last decade, ionic liquids have come to the fore as environmentally-responsible designer solvents. But what are ionic liquids and what can they offer the analytical scientist? This article addresses these questions and chronicles recent progress made in the application of ionic liquids toward analytical problem-solving. While further progress is required before ionic liquids become m...

Room-temperature ionic liquids are a class of non-molecular ionic solvents with low melting points. Their properties have the potential to be especially useful as stationary phases in gas-liquid chromatography (GLC). A series of common ionic liquids were evaluated as GLC stationary phases. It was found that many of these ionic liquids suffer from low thermal stability and possess unfavorable re...

Supramolecular gelators comprising 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acids and amino acid methyl esters (glycine, L-alanine, L-valine, L-leucine, L-methionine, and L-phenylalanine) for ionic liquids were developed. Ten types of ionic liquids were gelated using the above-mentioned gelators at relatively low concentrations. Field emission-scanning electron microscopy and confocal laser scanning microsco...

The lithium ion-ion interactions in protic ionic liquids can be very different compared to those in aprotic ionic liquids. In this study we show that, for equal lithium ion concentration, the lithium coordination number in protic ionic liquids is lower than that in aprotic ones. This lower coordination makes lithium ions more "free" to move in protic ionic liquids and it might have an important...