Inorganic materials from ionic liquids.

Ionic liquids (ILs) can add value to many chemical processes. The electrochemistry and the (physical) organic chemistry communities in particular have extensively studied the structure, properties, and reactivities of various ILs and reactions therein. Inorganic and materials chemists are the newest addition to the IL community: over a number of years, various approaches to the fabrication of inorganic solids with unprecedented and sometimes unique structures and properties have been reported. This article summarizes the state of this particular sub-field of IL research and highlights a few promising approaches that not only reproduce conventional synthesis in ILs, but that provide pathways towards new, possibly unknown, inorganics with advantageous properties that cannot (or only with great difficulty) be made via conventional processes.