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R. S. Kalb
of cations and anions to make different ionic liquids for a variety of product and process parameters. The published knowledge we have today is insufficient, and there
remains a lot of work to be done in the future for applied researchers. However, to
the best knowledge of the author including unpublished results from our laboratory,
there are already a large number of standard ionic liquids and materials that show
excellent general compatibility. While all applications will always be evaluated on
a case-by-case basis, solutions have been determined for the majority of material
compatibility problems to date.
“Hardware is struggling; software is surging”: Until today, there was no sufficiently substantial investment in ionic liquid technology in order to “think big”
(statement 8). Only 8.7% of the participants totally or mostly disagree with this
statement, about 70% agree, and more than 50% totally or mostly agree. This supports the opinion of the author; not nearly enough investment has been made in ionic
liquids. In order to fully exploit the potential of ionic liquids (e.g., in giving the
world access to biomass in a way that it has never been accessed before, committing to total substitution of fossil oil, and solving the pressing problem of replacing
non-degradable plastics from the planet [53, 54]), more strategic investment must be
made in promising ionic liquid technologies.
Of course, this is not meant to undervalue the millions of dollars that have been
invested in ionic liquids to date. However, these investments have supported single
applications and not mass applications of globally strategic importance. To achieve
the latter, investors and governments might have to invest hundreds of millions of
dollars to really move forward. While 100 million U.S. dollars seems to be a lot
of money, it is on par with the amount earned by companies like Apple, Microsoft,
Shell, or Volkswagen within a few hours [55] and equals only 6 ppm (0.0006%) of
the GDP of the European Union [56]. Instead of smartphone apps, this planet needs
more investment in hardware!
“Ionic liquids have passed a hype and are getting mature now; as with any crosstechnological breakthrough, this process takes a long time until substantial adoption”
(statement 9). As to be expected, 100% of the participants agreed with this statement
and almost 70% agreed mostly to totally. This indicates that the change in expectations from unrealistic to realistic has taken place over the last decade. The party is
over; let’s do the real work now!
The evaluation of statement 10: “There are only a low number of convincing,
in particular disruptive value propositions” was surprisingly distributed among all
possible ratings with 56% agreement and 44% disagreement. On the one hand, it is
the nature of disruptive technologies to be rare. On the other hand, the ratings show
that almost half of the participants think that there is still a lot of remaining potential
in the field of ionic liquids.
It frequently can be heard that “ionic liquids are too viscous” (statement 11). While
64% of the participants disagree with this, only 32% disagree totally to mostly,
and 60% of participants rather disagree or rather agree. It seems the statement is
understood by participants as being oversimplified, but there is a grain of truth in it.
It is a fact that compared to classical organic solvents, viscosities of ionic liquids are
1–3 orders of magnitude higher. As such, applications which depend on these low
R. S. Kalb
of cations and anions to make different ionic liquids for a variety of product and process parameters. The published knowledge we have today is insufficient, and there
remains a lot of work to be done in the future for applied researchers. However, to
the best knowledge of the author including unpublished results from our laboratory,
there are already a large number of standard ionic liquids and materials that show
excellent general compatibility. While all applications will always be evaluated on
a case-by-case basis, solutions have been determined for the majority of material
compatibility problems to date.
“Hardware is struggling; software is surging”: Until today, there was no sufficiently substantial investment in ionic liquid technology in order to “think big”
(statement 8). Only 8.7% of the participants totally or mostly disagree with this
statement, about 70% agree, and more than 50% totally or mostly agree. This supports the opinion of the author; not nearly enough investment has been made in ionic
liquids. In order to fully exploit the potential of ionic liquids (e.g., in giving the
world access to biomass in a way that it has never been accessed before, committing to total substitution of fossil oil, and solving the pressing problem of replacing
non-degradable plastics from the planet [53, 54]), more strategic investment must be
made in promising ionic liquid technologies.
Of course, this is not meant to undervalue the millions of dollars that have been
invested in ionic liquids to date. However, these investments have supported single
applications and not mass applications of globally strategic importance. To achieve
the latter, investors and governments might have to invest hundreds of millions of
dollars to really move forward. While 100 million U.S. dollars seems to be a lot
of money, it is on par with the amount earned by companies like Apple, Microsoft,
Shell, or Volkswagen within a few hours [55] and equals only 6 ppm (0.0006%) of
the GDP of the European Union [56]. Instead of smartphone apps, this planet needs
more investment in hardware!
“Ionic liquids have passed a hype and are getting mature now; as with any crosstechnological breakthrough, this process takes a long time until substantial adoption”
(statement 9). As to be expected, 100% of the participants agreed with this statement
and almost 70% agreed mostly to totally. This indicates that the change in expectations from unrealistic to realistic has taken place over the last decade. The party is
over; let’s do the real work now!
The evaluation of statement 10: “There are only a low number of convincing,
in particular disruptive value propositions” was surprisingly distributed among all
possible ratings with 56% agreement and 44% disagreement. On the one hand, it is
the nature of disruptive technologies to be rare. On the other hand, the ratings show
that almost half of the participants think that there is still a lot of remaining potential
in the field of ionic liquids.
It frequently can be heard that “ionic liquids are too viscous” (statement 11). While
64% of the participants disagree with this, only 32% disagree totally to mostly,
and 60% of participants rather disagree or rather agree. It seems the statement is
understood by participants as being oversimplified, but there is a grain of truth in it.
It is a fact that compared to classical organic solvents, viscosities of ionic liquids are
1–3 orders of magnitude higher. As such, applications which depend on these low