Microwave-assisted chemical processes in ionic liquids: Toward depletion of emissions and energy savings

The environmental awareness has triggered research for the development of more efficient and cleaner technologies in chem. industry. Ionic liqs. and microwave irradn. have appeared in recent years as promising approaches for the replacement of org. volatile compds. in different chem. processes and for the utilization of more efficient heating sources, resp. Ionic liqs. are considered to be very effective substances for the absorption of microwave irradn. In this work, a combination of these two technol. approaches is applied to polymn. processes. The efficient use of ionic liqs., avoiding the use of volatile org. compds. in polymer synthesis is demonstrated including ionic liq. selection and recycling. A more efficient heating source for the polymn. reaction mixts. in comparison to conventional heating sources has been detected as direct consequence of the use of the combination of ionic liqs. and microwave irradn. Furthermore, the investigated concept in the reaction process is proposed to be extended to the ionic liq. recycling step by the means of a sort of microwave-assisted distn., which may open possibilities for the development of more efficient sepn. processes.