Electrochemistry Is Heating Up: Ionic Liquids Can Help

Electrochemistry offers a complementary pathway for chemical manufacturing, providing benefits beyond traditional thermochemical processes, but most systems are constrained to near-ambient temperatures due to solvent limitations. This leaves an underexplored intermediate-temperature regime (100–300 °C) between aqueous and solid-state electrolytes where many industrial reactions operate and heat is accessible at scale. Ionic liquids (ILs) are uniquely suited to operating in this regime. They combine robust thermal stability, wide electrochemical windows, high ionic efficiency, and tunable chemical properties. ILs have already been applied in devices such as fuel cells, water splitting, and high-temperature energy storage, but their use for electrochemical synthesis above 100 °C remains largely unexplored. Here we highlight how ILs can enable both mechanistic studies and practical electrochemical systems at elevated temperatures while outlining the challenges of cost, viscosity, compositional diversity, and device integration. Harnessing these opportunities could establish ILs as key electrolytes for bridging electrocatalysis and thermocatalysis.