Advanced porous materials from poly(ionic liquid)s: Challenges, applications and opportunities

Over the past few years porous materials have become a topic of intense research. Porous poly(ionic liquid)s combine the porous architecture with intrinsic ionic liquids properties. In all research areas, the quest for new and improved materials has targeted functional materials with enhanced specificity and efficiency towards the final application. The application of porous materials ranges from sensing, protein separation, solid-phase extraction, catalysis, to CO₂ capture and reuse. Recently, the design, synthesis, and porosity control of poly(ionic liquid)s have been attempted through strategies that include classic polymerization techniques as well as molecular imprinting and aerogels production. This review aims at providing the recent advances on porous poly(ionic liquid)s, giving a critical perspective about the works in which key requirements for porosity induction are discussed. Several applications that rely on molecular interactions between the porous material and target compounds are presented, focusing mainly on CO₂ capture and reuse, along with some challenges that the scientific community in this field need to be aware of.