Applications of Ionic Liquids in the Food and Bioproducts Industries

Ionic liquids (ILs) have been extensively used in many research and industry fields, including chemical and pharmaceutical applications. Nevertheless, during past years, some works revealed that those green solvents in fact could present certain toxicity levels. This is the reason why some biocompounds from natural sources, such as choline, amino acids, and organic acids, for synthesis of ILs have showed to be alternatives. This means that there is evidence that ILs with low or nontoxic effects could be synthesized, possibly overcoming the major drawback of using them in the food industry. Applications of these third generation ILs, or even the most common ILs, in food processes are scarce and mainly focused on extraction processes and chemical analysis methods. These works have proven that, considering the physical properties of ILs of interest for the food industry such as melting profile, solubility, viscoelasticity, and high biocompatibility, when compared to those commonly used, ILs are alternatives for use in the design of food products and processes. In this context, the present review provides an overview of applications of ILs in the food industry reported to date in the literature, disclosing their synthesis with natural biocompounds. Also, it proposes new applications in the food and bioproducts industries based on the main trends of the recent literature.