Green solvents for green technologies

In contrast to a recently expressed, and widely cited, view that "Ionic liquids are starting to leave academic labs and find their way into a wide variety of industrial applications", we demonstrate in this critical review that there have been parallel and collaborative exchanges between academic research and industrial developments since the materials were first reported in 1914 (148 references).

Green Chemistry is a relatively new emerging field that strives to work at the molecular level to achieve sustainability. The field has received widespread interest in the past decade due to its ability to harness chemical innovation to meet environmental and economic goals simultaneously. Green Chemistry has a framework of a cohesive set of Twelve Principles, which have been systematically surveyed in this critical review. This article covers the concepts of design and the scientific philosophy of Green Chemistry with a set of illustrative examples. Future trends in Green Chemistry are discussed with the challenge of using the Principles as a cohesive design system (93 references).