Recent Developments on Ionic Liquids and Deep Eutectic Solvents for Drug Delivery Applications

The field of Ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DESs) is continuously expanding due to their exceptional unique properties and highly tunable nature, which finds applications in broad areas of modern science. Considering numerous possible IL and DES combinations prepared with active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), they find applications in pharmaceutical sciences. They can also serve as potential components of drug formulations and hence they have drawn the attention of formulation scientists. Herein, the concept of pharmaceutical ILs and DESs are discussed briefly. The possible applications of these solvent systems for slow drug delivery including nanoscale drug delivery are discussed citing various examples from the published literature. Although the ILs and DESs are found to be suitable for various drug delivery applications but still none of the slow drug delivery vehicles based on these solvents is in practical use. The data relating to long-term toxicity upon administration in the human body followed by various safety evaluations, clinical trials, etc. are pending for such new drug delivery systems. However, proof of concept studies done on the retention of biological activities in the ionic form is quite encouraging and such studies indicate the possibility of application of such new systems in the development of biomedical research and related industries in near future.

Frontiers in poly(ionic liquid)s: syntheses and applications

We review recent works on the synthesis and application of poly(ionic liquid)s (PILs). Novel chemical structures, different synthetic strategies and controllable morphologies are introduced as a supplement to PIL systems already reported. The primary properties determining applications, such as ionic conductivity, aqueous solubility, thermodynamic stability and electrochemical/chemical durability, are discussed. Furthermore, the near-term applications of PILs in multiple fields, such as their use in electrochemical energy materials, stimuli-responsive materials, carbon materials, and antimicrobial materials, in catalysis, in sensors, in absorption and in separation materials, as well as several special-interest applications, are described in detail. We also discuss the limitations of PIL applications, efforts to improve PIL physics, and likely future developments.

Cationic and dicationic 1,2,3-triazolium-based poly(ethylene glycol ionic liquid)s

We report the synthesis and in-depth characterization of two novel poly(ionic liquid)s having poly(ethylene glycol) main chains and side chains having either one or two 1,2,3-triazolium cations with triethylene glycol spacers and bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide counter anion(s).

Poly(ionic liquid)s with controlled architectures and their use in the making of ionogels with high conductivity and tunable rheological properties

We describe the preparation as well as the electrochemical and mechanical properties of a series of novel well-defined poly(ionic liquids) (PILs) featuring a finely tuned cross-linking ratio.