Anti-microbial activities of ionic liquids

Ionic liquids (ILs) are shown to display anti-microbial activity with the activities being greatly affected by alkyl chain lengths. Shorter substituents on the cation result in a lack of activity against cocci, rods and fungi. ILs containing 10, 11, 12 and 14 carbon atoms in an alkoxy group show very high anti-microbial activities. The use of microorganisms in the IL require consideration of their minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values.