Low Melting Mixtures: Neoteric Solvents and/or Catalysts for a Green Approach to Organic Reactions

Abstract

In the past two decades, low melting mixtures have become attractive because of their interesting characteristics such as, physicochemical properties, low cost of components, easiness to prepare, low toxicity, biorenewability and biodegradability. Carbohydrates which are the most important and widespread renewable compound on earth are introduced in low melting mixtures to get more cost effective and renewable solvents. The present review mainly focuses on the properties and applications of low melting mixtures, which completely satisfy the green chemistry principles. Many physicochemical properties of low melting mixtures were studied recently. The various studies included thermal stability, glass transition temperature, density, viscosity, acidity, surface tension, refractive index, FT-IR spectra, conductivity etc. The application towards organic synthesis makes the low melting mixtures very important. An analysis on the reports on low melting mixtures and their application in organic synthesis as solvent and the dual role as catalyst and solvent is presented.