Application of clean technologies using electrochemistry in ionic liquids

Rising costs and green environmental concerns have focused attention on more efficient way of producing chemical products. Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs), especially in combination with electrochemical activation, provide promise of reduction pollution in processing because of their recyclability and low vapour loss factors. The fundamental and applied aspects of electrolytic processing in ionic liquid media are discussed using data from various direct and catalytic redox processes. It is shown that ionic liquids are potentially very useful for performing important redox transformations, for example alcohol oxidations, carboxylations and CO2 capture. These results indicated that electrolytic transformations in RTIL media are feasible which present opportunities for developing new real chemical processing applications. The opportunities and challenges for electrochemical engineers in this field are outlined and discussed. Copyright © 2011 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.