Application of ionic liquids in separation and analysis of carbohydrates: State of the art and future trends

Carbohydrates are important raw materials in the chemical industry and they also play significant roles in biological systems. Ionic liquids (ILs), the promising and designable green solvents, have been proposed as an alternative to traditional organic solvents. In light of their unique physicochemical properties, ILs have a good many applications for carbohydrates. This review provides a compilation on the main results achieved by application of ILs for carbohydrates in both separation and analytical chemistry. The IL-based solid-liquid and liquid-liquid separation processes for carbohydrates (especially for those with high molecular weights), such as carbohydrate isolation from biomass, IL-based aqueous biphasic systems (ABSs), selective precipitation, support tags for purification, and analytical techniques, such as matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS), electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), among others, are here reviewed. Key accomplishments and future perspectives in this field are discussed. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.