The molten organic salts with melting point below 100 °C, commonly called ionic liquids (ILs) have found numerous uses in separation sciences due to their exceptional properties as non molecular solvents, namely, a negligible vapor pressure, a high thermal stability, and unique solvating properties due to polarity and their ionic character of molten salts. Other properties, such as viscosity, boiling point, water solubility, and electrochemical window, are adjustable playing with which anion is associated with which cation. This review focuses on recent development of the uses of ILs in separation techniques actualizing our 2008 article (same authors, J. Chromatogr. A, 1184 (2008) 6–18) focusing on alkyl methylimidazolium salts. These developments include the use of ILs in nuclear waste reprocessing, highly thermally stable ILs that allowed for the introduction of polar gas chromatography capillary columns able to work at temperature never seen before (passing 300 °C), the use of ILs in liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis, and the introduction of tailor-made ILs for mass spectrometry detection of trace anions at the few femtogram level. The recently introduced deep eutectic solvents are not exactly ILs, they are related enough so that their properties and uses in countercurrent chromatography are presented.

熔点低于100°C的熔融有机盐，通常称为离子液体（ILs），由于其作为非分子溶剂的优异性能，例如，可忽略的蒸气压，高的热稳定性和独特的性能，在分离科学中得到了广泛的应用。由于极性和熔融盐的离子特性而导致的溶剂化性能。其他性质，例如粘度，沸点，水溶性和电化学窗口，是可调节的，阴离子与哪种阳离子相关联。这篇评论的重点是在实现我们2008年文章的分离技术中IL的使用的最新发展（同一作者，J。Chromatogr。A，1184（2008）6–18）重点研究烷基甲基咪唑鎓盐。这些发展包括在核废料后处理中使用离子色谱，高度热稳定的离子色谱，从而允许引入能够在从未有过的温度（超过300°C）下工作的极性气相色谱毛细管色谱柱，在液相色谱中使用离子色谱和毛细管电泳，并引入量身定制的IL，用于质谱法检测少量飞克级的痕量阴离子。最近引入的深共熔溶剂并非完全是IL，它们具有足够的相关性，因此可以介绍它们的性质和在逆流色谱法中的用途。