Green Processing and Applications Using Ionic Liquids

The chemical industry is under considerable pressure to replace many existing processes by new technology with preferably zero or at least much less generation of chemical waste and impact on the environment as well. In particular, this holds for the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries, which by definition generate per kg net product the highest amount of chemical waste. The occurrence of excessive amounts of chemical waste is mainly caused by insufficient atom-efficiency of the reactions performed, while the use of volatile organic solvents (VOS), both as reaction media and as product extraction solvents, are released in too large amounts into the environment. In other words, current processes quite often are not green at all. It is foreseen that ionic liquids may play an important role in designing much more green processes. This session solicits for a wide variety of contributions that considers the development of much greener processes with ionic liquids involved.