Green and sustainable solvents of the future: Deep eutectic solvents

Deep Eutectic solvents (DESs) can be termed as the New Age Solvents that have emerged as potential alternatives to conventional solvents in many industrial applications. These encompass various types of DES, their synthesis, multifarious industrial applications, and superiority over industrial solvents and Ionic Liquids (ILs). This burgeoning interest in the DES has stemmed from their very specific characteristics of being safe, less hazardous, “green” as compared to ILs, biodegradable, ease of being prepared in commercial proportions, low cost of preparation and several other interesting features. Within a very short span of time, DESs have been employed for a large and diverse range of applications including separation processes, extraction of solvents, pharmaceutical processing, environmental protection, material synthesis etc. This review brings out the recent happenings in the field of DES research, types and synthesis. It also sheds light on commercial applications of DESs as green and sustainable solvents of the future as a feasible alternative to the present day hazardous and carcinogenic industrial solvents. The reusability, regeneration, scalability for industrial applications, promising applications at commercial scale have also been discussed together with theoretical and computational models.