Applications of Ionic Liquids in Organic Synthesis

Abstract

Ionic liquids (ILs) are developed as a sustainable alternative to most of the volatile organic solvents. As the research on ILs progress, they emerged also as suitable catalysts and reagents. ILs possess unique set of properties with respect to their cationic and anionic components, which allows ILs to be used in varied fields. They overcome many of the traditional limitations related to conventional organic synthesis. This chapter discusses briefly about the ILs and their applications in organic synthesis. We have selected five named reactions, Biginelli reaction, Knoevenagel reaction, Michael reaction, Heck reaction, and Friedel–Crafts alkylation and acylation, to show the utility of ILs in organic synthesis.