Ionic liquid/water mixture promoted organic transformations

Abstract

Ionic liquids (ILs) have been used in numerous applications in chemistry. Wet ILs constitute a new class of solvents with their own new and interesting properties. The properties of ILs are significantly influenced by the addition of water and also affect reaction rates and selectivity. IL/water mixing makes it easy to control the properties of the solution and the formation of these ionic liquid mixtures increases synthetic flexibility. In this review, mixtures of IL/water solvent system promoted organic reactions have been described and the results are compared with other solvent systems. In many cases IL/water combinations were superior compared to conventional organic solvents and biphasic IL/organic co-solvent media with respect to catalytic performance as well as to catalyst separation and recycling.