Faster, Better, Cleaner?

New liquids take aim at old-fashioned chemistry

With increasing frequency, today’s chemists are sending their students off in search of Victorian-era scientific reports. These obscure, 19th-century references to the work of organic chemistry’s earliest practitioners are now appearing among the endnotes of an exploding number of present-day journal articles.

Fluorohexane floats on top of a conventional ionic liquid (left).