Dear Colleagues,

For more than two decades, ionic liquids (ILs) have attracted considerable attention from the research community, a result of their wide range of potential applications, their enormous structural diversity (made possible by the availability of a nearly infinite variety of cations and anions), and their many useful physicochemical properties (e.g., low vapor pressure, electrical conductivity, and wide liquid range).

Among the many fields that have benefited from the remarkable characteristics of these “solvents of the future” are homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, battery and fuel cell development, organic synthesis, and chemical sensor design.   Ionic liquids have also been of particular interest in the field of separations, both in terms of their fundamental aspects and their practical applications. Today, work in this area spans such varied techniques as liquid-liquid extraction for product recovery and waste-treatment applications, liquid membranes for the capture of organic or inorganic solutes, and analytical-scale chromatographic systems. Closely related are efforts to develop new ionic liquid-based composite materials, in which, for example, a structured support is impregnated with an ionic liquid or its mixture with an extractant to yield novel, selective sorbents.

With this as background, it is our pleasure to invite you to contribute to a Special Issue of the journal Molecules focused on the fundamental and applied aspects of ionic liquids as they relate to chemical separations. Our objective is to create a forum for the sharing of information on the most recent developments in the fields of materials science, chemical engineering, and analytical chemistry, with emphasis on their impact on the applications of ILs in separations science. Contributions may be full papers, communications, or reviews. Questions concerning the suitability of a particular topic for a contribution should be directed to the Guest Editors indicated below.

We thank you in advance for your willingness to share your insights with the readers of Molecules.

Dr. Eric Guibal
Prof. Mark L. Dietz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.