Ionic liquids are remarkable chemical compounds, which find applications in many areas of modern science. Because of their highly tunable nature and exceptional properties, ionic liquids have become essential players in the fields of synthesis and catalysis, extraction, electrochemistry, analytics, biotechnology, etc. Apart from physical and chemical features of ionic liquids, their high biological activity has been attracting significant attention from biochemists, ecologists, and medical scientists. This Review is dedicated to biological activities of ionic liquids, with a special emphasis on their potential employment in pharmaceutics and medicine. The accumulated data on the biological activity of ionic liquids, including their antimicrobial and cytotoxic properties, are discussed in view of possible applications in drug synthesis and drug delivery systems. Dedicated attention is given to a novel active pharmaceutical ingredient-ionic liquid (API-IL) concept, which suggests using traditional drugs in ...

Biological Activity of Ionic Liquids and Their Application in Pharmaceutics and Medicine.

Ionic liquids (ILs) have been proposed as promising media for the extraction and separation of bioactive compounds from the most diverse origins. This critical review offers a compilation on the main results achieved by the use of ionic-liquid-based processes in the extraction and separation/purification of a large range of bioactive compounds (including small organic extractable compounds from biomass, lipids, and other hydrophobic compounds, proteins, amino acids, nucleic acids, and pharmaceuticals). ILs have been studied as solvents, cosolvents, cosurfactants, electrolytes, and adjuvants, as well as used in the creation of IL-supported materials for separation purposes. The IL-based processes hitherto reported, such as IL-based solid–liquid extractions, IL-based liquid–liquid extractions, IL-modified materials, and IL-based crystallization approaches, are here reviewed and compared in terms of extraction and separation performance. The key accomplishments and future challenges to the field are discusse...

Ionic-Liquid-Mediated Extraction and Separation Processes for Bioactive Compounds: Past, Present, and Future Trends

An ideal extraction method should be swift, yield quantitative recovery without degradation, and the extracts should be easily separated from the solvent. The development and application of alternative green technology to replace conventional extraction methods with improved extraction efficiency and low environmental impact for the determination of natural bioactive compounds is therefore, highly important. Supercritical fluid technology offers features that overcome many limitations of conventional extraction methods. This review presents an analytical overview regarding the application of supercritical fluids in the extraction of bioactive compounds and their operative extraction conditions, along with the investigation of further improvements on the extraction efficiency and the applied techniques for the structural characterization and identification of such bioactive compounds.

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Supercritical fluid extraction of bioactive compounds

Immobilization is one of the most effective and powerful tools used in industry, which has been studied and improved since the last century. Various immobilization techniques and support materials have been used on both laboratory and industrial scale. Each immobilization technique is applicable for a specific production mostly depending on the cost and sensibility of process. Compared to free biocatalyst systems, immobilization techniques often offer better stability, increased activity and selectivity, higher resistance, improved separation and purification, reuse of enzymes, and consequently more efficient process. Recently, many reviews have been published about immobilization systems; however, most of them have focused on a specific application or not emphasized in details. This review focuses on most commonly used techniques in industry with many recent applications including using bioreactor systems for industrial production. It is also aimed to emphasize the advantages and disadvantages of the immobilization techniques and how these systems improve process productivity compared to non-immobilized systems.

Principles, techniques, and applications of biocatalyst immobilization for industrial application

Among new potential solvents for lignocellulosic materials, ionic liquids (ILs) are attracting considerable attention. Hence, the knowledge of the thermophysical properties of such fluids is essential for the design of related industrial processes. Therefore, in this work, a set of thermophysical properties, namely, density, viscosity, and refractive index, as a function of temperature, and isobaric thermal expansivity and heat capacities at a constant temperature, were determined for eight ionic liquids with the 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium cation combined with the following anions: acetate, methylphosphonate, methanesulfonate, trifluoromethanesulfonate, dicyanamide, thiocyanate, tosylate, and dimethylphosphate. Imidazolium-based ILs were chosen since these are the most studied ionic fluids in biomass dissolution approaches, while a large array of anions was investigated because it was already demonstrated that it is the IL anion that mainly governs the dissolution.

Thermophysical Characterization of Ionic Liquids Able To Dissolve Biomass

During the past decade, ionic-liquid-based Aqueous Biphasic Systems (ABS) have been the focus of a significant amount of research. Based on a compilation and analysis of the data hitherto reported, this critical review provides a judicious assessment of the available literature on the subject. We evaluate the quality of the data and establish the main drawbacks found in the literature. We discuss the main issues which govern the phase behaviour of ionic-liquid-based ABS, and we highlight future challenges to the field. In particular, the effect of the ionic liquid structure and the various types of salting-out agents (inorganic or organic salts, amino acids and carbohydrates) on the phase equilibria of ABS is discussed, as well as the influence of secondary parameters such as temperature and pH. More recent approaches using ionic liquids as additives or as replacements for common salts in polymer-based ABS are also presented and discussed to emphasize the expanding number of aqueous two-phase systems that can actually be obtained. Finally, we address two of the main applications of ionic liquid-based ABS: extraction of biomolecules and other added-value compounds, and their use as alternative approaches for removing and recovering ionic liquids from aqueous media.

Aqueous biphasic systems: a boost brought about by using ionic liquids

In this work, mutual solubilities of two [PF6]-based ionic liquids (ILs) with water and their thermophysical properties, namely, melting properties of pure ILs and densities and viscosities of both pure and water-saturated ILs, were determined. The selected ILs comprise 1-methyl-3-propylimidazolium and 1-methyl-3-propylpyridinium cations combined with the anion hexafluorophosphate. Mutual solubilities with water were measured in the temperature range from (288.15 to 318.15) K. From the experimental solubility data dependence on temperature, the molar thermodynamic functions of solution, such as Gibbs energy, enthalpy, and entropy of the ILs in water were further derived. In addition, a simulation study based on the COSMO-RS methodology was carried out. For both pure ILs and water-equilibrated samples, densities and viscosities were determined in the temperature interval between (303.15 and 373.15) K. The isobaric thermal expansion coefficients for pure and water-saturated ILs were calculated based on the ...

Ana Filipa M. Cláudio

Papers

Aqueous biphasic systems: a boost brought about by using ionic liquids

Thermophysical Properties and Water Saturation of [PF6]-Based Ionic Liquids

Aqueous Biphasic Systems: A Boost Brought about by Using Ionic Liquids