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To mitigate the growing pressure on resource depletion and environment degradation, the development of green processes for the production of renewable energy is highly required. As a class of novel and promising media, ionic liquids (ILs) have shown infusive potential applications in energy production. Aiming to offer a critical overview regarding the new challenges and opportunities of ILs for developing green processes of renewable energy, this article emphasises the role of ILs as catalysts, solvents, or electrolytes in three broadly interesting energy production processes from renewable resources, such as CO2 conversion to fuels and fuel additives, biomass pretreatment and conversion to biofuels, as well as solar energy and energy storage. It is expected that this article will stimulate a generation of new ideas and new technologies in IL-based renewable energy production.
Zhang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.