Ionic liquids as an enabling tool to integrate reaction and separation processes

Abstract

The development of advanced processes able to directly provide pure products by integrating chemical transformations, product separation and recovery and reuse of solvent and catalytic phases by straightforward and smart approaches is a key feature to build green chemical processes. The unique properties of ionic liquids (ILs), one of the key enabling technologies, can lead, when combined with (bio)catalysts, to amazing synergies not only improving the catalytic efficiency (i.e. improved activity and enantioselectivity, enhanced stability, etc.), but also allowing the design of smart approaches for product separation (e.g. IL/scCO₂ biphasic reactors, membrane reactors, nanodrop systems, microfluidic devices, supported IL phases, sponge-like ILs, etc.), incorporating the full recovery and reuse of the catalyst and the IL phase. This tutorial review highlights representative examples of IL-based systems integrating reaction/separation as a tool for the development of sustainable chemical processes leading to clean and pure chemical products.