:
Ionic Liquids (ILs) in their neoteric form have emerged to be a potential ‘green’ alternative
of traditional Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) as solvents in different fields of industries and academia. Recent investigations on the development of multi-faceted applications of ionic liquids have
revealed that they really stand for “environmentally-benign” solvents as far as their impact on the
ecology is concerned. This caused them to be an exciting and lucrative subject to explore more and
more, and many research groups are involved in the manifestation of their inherent undisclosed legacy.
Recently, there has been a huge jump in search of an alternative to conventional metal catalysts in academia as well as in industries due to their pollution-evoking roles. Scientists have explored multiple
numbers of homogeneous or heterogeneous mixtures of catalysts incorporating ionic liquids to reduce
the extent of contamination in our global environment produced due to catalytic synthesis and chemical transformations. In this review, we have put our concentration on some beneficial and recently explored aspects of the successful implementation of Ionic Liquids in different forms in several fields of
catalysis as a ‘green’ alternative catalyst/co-catalyst/solvent for catalysis to replace or minimize the
lone and hazardous use of metal and metallic compounds as catalysts as well as chemicals like mineral
acids or VOCs as solvents. Here, our study focuses on the inevitable role of ILs in several catalytic reactions like cycloaddition of CO2, electrolytic reduction of CO2, biocatalytic or enzymatic reactions,
some of the important organic conversions, and biomass to biofuel conversion as catalysts, cocatalysts, catalyst activator, and solvents.
Ionic Liquids as Environmental Benign Solvents for Cellulose Chemistry: A Review