Ionic Liquids in Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

Ionic liquids (ILs) are salts of organic cations that are present in liquid state. They can be used as alternative to organic solvents for various analytical processes such as extracting solvents in sample preparation, or as mobile phase or components of the mobile phase in high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Also they can be used as stationary phase in gas chromatography (GC), or attached to a solid support as stationary phase in HPLC. Ils are typically more environmentally-friendly solvents than the classic organic solvents having low volatility, flammability and toxicity. The chapter presents various applications of ILs in liquid chromatography.