A brief insight into the physicochemical properties of room-temperature acidic ionic liquids and their catalytic applications in C C bond formation reactions

Abstract Room-temperature acidic ionic liquids (RTAILs) have garnered ample interests across several research disciplines, owing to their unique and diverse physicochemical properties. This chapter provides a comprehensive review on these unique physicochemical properties of the RTAILs, which include conductivity, viscosity, electrochemical and thermal stability, acidity, density, surface tension, surfactant properties and solvatochromic parameters. Further, the effects of constituent ions, temperature, concentration, solvent, etc., on these properties are also discussed here briefly. The next part of this chapter is devoted to the application of RTAILs as catalysts/solvents in various C C bond formation reactions, which include multicomponent reactions, electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions, Michael addition reactions, rearrangement reactions and condensation reactions. Finally, this chapter summarizes the effect of various factors that accounts for variation of physicochemical properties of the RTAILs with future scopes of their applications in specific fields.