Like most of the materials used by humans, polymeric materials are proposed in the literature and occasionally exploited clinically, as such, as devices or as part of devices, by surgeons, dentists, and pharmacists to treat traumata and diseases. Applications have in common the fact that polymers function in contact with animal and human cells, tissues, and/or organs. More recently, people have realized that polymers that are used as plastics in packaging, as colloidal suspension in paints, and under many other forms in the environment, are also in contact with living systems and raise problems related to sustainability, delivery of chemicals or pollutants, and elimination of wastes. These problems are basically comparable to those found in therapy. Last but not least, biotechnology and renewable resources are regarded as attractive sources of polymers. In all cases, water, ions, biopolymers, cells, and tissues are involved. Polymer scientists, therapists, biologists, and ecologists should thus use the same terminology to reflect similar properties, phenomena, and mechanisms. Of particular interest is the domain of the so-called "degradable or biodegradable polymers" that are aimed at providing materials with specific time-limited applications in medicine and in the environment where the respect of living systems, the elimination, and/or the bio-recycling are mandatory, at least ideally.

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Ionic liquids are organic salts that are liquid at ambient temperatures, preferably at room temperature. They are nonvolatile, thermally and chemically stable, highly polar liquids that dissolve many organic, inorganic, and metallo-organic compounds. Many combinations of organic cations with different counterions are already known, and the properties of ionic liquids may be adjusted by the proper selection of the cation and counterion. In the last decade, there has been increasing interest in using ionic liquids as solvents for chemical reactions. The interest is stimulated not only by their nonvolatility (green solvents) but also by their special properties, which often affect the course of a reaction. In recent years, ionic liquids have also attracted the attention of polymer chemists. Although the research on using ionic liquids in polymer systems is still in its infancy, several interesting possibilities have already emerged. Ionic liquids are used as solvents for polymerization processes, and in several systems they indeed show some advantages. In radical polymerization, the k p /k t ratio (where k p is the rate constant of propagation and k t is the rate constant of termination) is higher than in organic media, and thus better control of the process can be achieved. Ionic liquids, as electrolytes, have also attracted the attention of researchers in the fields of electrochemical polymerization and the synthesis of conducting polymers. Finally, the blending of ionic liquids with polymers may lead to the development of new materials (ionic liquids may act as plasticizers, electrolytes dispersed in polymer matrices, or even porogens). In this article, the new developments in these fields are briefly discussed.

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