TY - CHAP A1 - Shiflett, M. B. A1 - Magee, J. W. A1 - Tuma, Dirk ED - Shiflett, M. B. T1 - Important Developments in the History of Ionic Liquids from Academic Curiosity to Commercial Processes and Products N2 - Twenty years ago, research involving ionic liquids was a minor field of interest, and only a few chemists and even fewer engineers were interested in salts with melting points near room temperature. In April 2000, the first NATO advanced research workshop on ionic liquids was held in Heraklion, Crete. The conference was the first international meeting devoted to ionic liquids and attracted most of the active researchers at that time. Following that meeting, activity in the field began to flourish and the first books and international conferences devoted to ionic liquids began to appear. By the end of 2018, more than 80,000 scientific papers had been published, and 17,000 patents were applied for in the field of ionic liquids! This book provides an overview of the current and emerging industrial applications of ionic liquids covering the core processes and products, the practical implementation and technical challenges involved, and the potential future directions for Research and development. The individual chapters were written by leading scientists in the field from industry and academia to address specific processes and products that are or will be soon commercialized. Examples include the use of a chloroaluminate ionic liquid as a next-generation alkylation catalyst to a new class of capillary gas chromatography (GC) columns with stationary phases based on ionic liquids. Over the past twenty years, there has been a growing realization that ionic liquids have moved from being mere academic curiosities to having genuine applications in fields as wide-ranging as advanced materials, biotechnology, catalysis, pharmaceuticals, renewable fuels, and sustainable energy. There are many optimistic indications that ionic liquids are on their way to becoming a commercial success story. This first book on “Commercial Applications of Ionic Liquids” provides over 50 applications that are either at the pilot scale or have been commercialized, which indicates that an exciting new chapter in the field of ionic liquids is about to begin! KW - Ionic Liquids KW - Historical Developments KW - Advanced Materials PY - 2020 SN - 978-3-030-35245-5 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35245-5_1 SN - 2196-6990 SP - 3 EP - 29 PB - Springer CY - Cham AN - OPUS4-50453 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -