Solvents play an important role in organic synthesis. Most of the common organic solvents which have been used for organic synthesis include benzene, chloroform, toluene, carbon tetrachloride etc. Most of these are volatile (VOC) and have undesirable properties like toxicity or being harmful to the environment or may be obtained from non renewable petroleum sources.
This book describes some of the most important green solvents, their merits and demerits. These green solvents include water, supercritical carbon dioxide, ionic liquids, polyethylene glycol and its solutions and the Florous Phase Technique. A large number of representative synthetic applications for each of the green solvents are described.