Surfactants in green solvent systems - Current and future research directions

An important area of green chemistry is the replacement of hazardous solvents in chemical processes. Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO(2)) and, more recently, ionic liquids have been the primary candidates for such green replacement solvents. While surfactants have been used extensively to broaden the range of applications for scCO(2), very few investigations have been reported concerning surfactants in ionic liquid solvent media. We present here an overview of the role of surfactants in scCO(2) and ionic liquids and illuminate the prospects of combining the solvent properties of these two environmental solvent systems.