A review of ionic liquids: Recent synthetic advances and oilfield applications

Background: Ionic liquids have received a lot of interest in recent years from scientists and academics due to their distinctive qualities, including low vapor pressure, low toxicity, high thermal stability, and recyclability. Ionic liquids have become a more sustainable substitute for volatile organic solvents.Methods: Ionic liquids can be synthesized with tailored properties by combining specific cationic and anionic components. Because of their distinct physiochemical characteristics and advantages, ionic liquids were used in different industrial processes such as organic/inorganic synthesis, biomass conversion, desulfurization, catalysis, electrochemistry, spectroscopy, and energy storage. Findings: The primary goal of the current review is to outline the numerous synthetic routes for various classes of ionic liquids such as imidazolium, phosphonium, sulfonium, pyridinium, ammonium, pyrazolium, triazolium, and protic ionic liquids. Ionic liquids have drawn interest for a variety of oilfield applications because of their stability under challenging reservoir conditions, tunability, and low toxicity. This review primarily concentrates on the numerous oilfield applications including demulsification, drilling, heavy oil recovery, and CO2 capture. This review also covers the challenges and drawbacks associated with the synthesis and applications of ionic liquids and provides a reasonable solution and potential ideas to address the challenges.