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The 2024 GRC on Ionic Liquids will discuss opportunities for the field in advancing ionic liquids research to address pressing societal challenges related to energy, sustainability, and health. In the area of energy, ionic liquids offer tremendous potential as solvents that can make processes more efficient by harnessing knowledge from fundamental research to design solvents specific to a particular process. Ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents can also address important milestones in improving sustainability, particularly in areas such as chemical synthesis and chemical separations where large volumes of solvents are often required. In the area of health, improved pharmaceuticals are being developed that can treat diseases in a highly specific manner. Ionic liquids can be used as the active pharmaceutical ingredient and can also serve as important vehicles for the delivery of targeted biopharmaceuticals. This meeting will highlight important issues and topics that must be addressed in order to make ionic liquids more readily adopted and transformative technologies. We will discuss current state-of-the art work in computational chemistry and the opportunities that exist for theoretical and computational efforts in machine learning. Opportunities offered by ionic liquid-based polymer systems and solvent templating approaches for guided production or destruction of biopolymers and nanomaterials will be probed. The role of ionic liquids as electrolyte materials for energy applications will be discussed. Conversations related to solvent purity as well as expanding the types of cations and anions – and their ordering at the nanoscale and on surfaces – will also be held. As was true for all meetings from previous years, we envision that the discussions held at the 2024 meeting will create many questions that will ultimately lead to new areas of study within the field. We hope that you can come and participate in these discussions within this highly thriving and welcoming community!

This GRC will be held in conjunction with the "Ionic Liquids" Gordon Research Seminar (GRS). Those interested in attending both meetings must submit an application for the GRS in addition to an application for the GRC.