Sceptics were predicting that the field of ionic liquids would slow down
or even reverse – but such a situation could not be further from the truth. In
fact, in the last year or so, more and more researchers and technologists in
increasingly diverse areas have become interested in ionic liquids. While this
is great for the subject, it presents somewhat of a nightmare to anyone
foolish enough to contemplate writing a book on the subject, even a book
restricted to metal catalysed reactions facilitated by ionic liquids.
At the time we started writing on this book, we were still optimistic that
we could give a comprehensive overview on metal-catalysed reactions in
ionic liquids. Yet, a literature search with the term “ionic liquid” gives some
3,100 references up to the end of 2004, of which more than 1,000 stem from
2004 alone. Thus, at some point we were forced to concede defeat and it is
likely that some important contributions have been overlooked. This is
probably particularly true for those papers, which are less easily accessible
and for which no translated versions exist. We tried to include papers that
appeared during the writing for as long as possible, but it could be that some
of the most recent publications do not get the detailed description they
should deserve.