Ionic liquids science at its best

Oeiras, 21.05.2013

The fifth edition of the International Congress on Ionic Liquids (COIL-5) took place last April in Vilamoura, Algarve, and attracted more than 500 participants and over 500 communications (plenaries, orals, flashes, and posters) from six continents. In the words of the Executive Committee, composed of ITQB researchers from the Molecular Thermodynamics Lab, “the scientific quality and novelty of the presented research contributed to the tremendous success of this meeting”. The conference was also praised by participants. The next event will now take place in South Korea, in 2015.

Ionic Liquids − basically liquid salts at experimentally reachable temperatures in any commonly equipped lab − started gaining scientific relevance about 20 years ago. Research tackling and using these fluids continues to boom, involving investigation in many fields of the exact sciences, natural sciences, technology, as well as the life and health sciences. Let us offer a snapshot. More than 5,000 indexed articles were published in 2012 alone, and since 1995 more than 30,000 indexed published works appeared, which, to date, have been cited more than half a million times (close to 600,000 citations).