IONIC LIQUIDS: CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS, POTENTIAL AND DRAWBACKS FOR INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS

Dedicated to the memory of Prof. Josef S. Gratzl [1] There is an increasing willingness to develop new cellulose-based materials due to the fact that cellulose is the earth´s most abundant biorenewable macromolecular resource. The efficient dissolution of cellulose is a long-standing goal in cellulose research and is still of great importance. This article gives a short survey of the relevant literature with respect to historical developments and potential industrial uses of ionic liquids and then proceeds to the latest results in cellulose/ionic liquid chemistry. Cellulose can be dissolved in several ionic liquids and can easily be regenerated by contacting with water. Dissolution and reconstitution experiments, fiber characteristics and molecular mass distribution data are described. The single crystal X-ray structure determination of the cellulose solvent 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride is presented. 162 references are given