A general environmentally friendly access to long chain fatty acid ionic liquids (LCFA-ILs)Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c7gc00830a

The development of bio-based ionic liquids (ILs) has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years. The so called long chain fatty acid ionic liquids (LCFA-ILs) represent a bio-based subfamily of hydrophobic ionic liquids. Here, a new preparation of the three major classes of LCFA-ILs (phosphonium, ammonium, imidazolium) is presented with the aim to overcome previous environmental synthetic issues. The undeniable interesting properties and potential applications of the LCFA-ILs often led to the underestimation of the drawbacks related to their synthetic pathways. Pure LCFA-ILs as well as cheaper mixture of LCFA-ILs have been obtained in a single step, in almost quantitative yields, and without production of waste water. The rheological and thermal stability properties of the prepared ILs have been analyzed. A general, environmentally friendly, single step synthesis of ammonium, phosphonium, and imidazolium long chain fatty acid ionic liquids (LCFA-ILs) is presented.