On the Use of Ionic Liquids in Biomass Transformations: Reaction Media and Catalysts

Biomass transformations would certainly play an important role in the partial or total substitution of petroleum-based products, either in production of materials and fuels. However, big challenges must still be addressed before sustainable processes from economic, energetic, environmental and social point of view would be available. In this manuscript are reviewed different attempts to develop new and efficient industrial processes using ionic liquids as reaction media. In particularly, are reviewed the main attempts to transform sacarides and acylglycerides into industrial products, with special attention to uses where ILs do not behaves only as “innocent” solvents but play also an important role favoring the reaction or completely changing the selectivity of the process.