Partitioning behaviour of organic compounds between ionic liquids and supercritical fluids

Applications and prospects of two-phase, tuneable solvent systems composed of ionic liquids (ILs) and supercritical fluids with an emphasis on supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) are reviewed. The IL–scCO2 biphasic systems have increasingly been used in diverse fields of chemistry and technology, and some examples of these applications are mentioned here. Rational design of such applications can obviously benefit from pertinent data on phase equilibria including the partition coefficients of the prospective products and reactants between the two phases. Therefore, a reliable technique to measure the limiting partition coefficients would be of value. Here, the pros and cons of supercritical fluid chromatography in this respect are discussed. An overview of methods for predictive thermodynamic modelling of binary (IL–scCO2) and ternary (solute–IL–scCO2) systems is also included.