Ionic liquids gels as efficient soft materials to remove dyes from water

What is it about?

We employed supramolecular ionogels made from diimidazolium maleate or fumarate salts in ionic liquids as sorbents for the removal of dyes from polluted water.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Our gels allowed fast and thorough removal of dyes from water and were recyclable for at least 20 cycles without losing efficiency. The gels retain their effcicency also in the presence of high pollutant concentrations. Unlike most of gels reported in literature, our materials are selective towards cationic instead of anionic dyes. This is one of the first works demonstrating the appliaction of ionic liquid gels in the context of environmental remediation.