Abstract:In recent years, ionic liquids have been widely used in the hydrometallurgical industry as a new type of ideal "green solvent". This article mainly describes the development, types and properties of ionic liquids, and makes a review of ionic liquids as extraction solvents for the extraction and separation of alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, heavy metals and transition metal ions. In summary, it is found that adding a chelating agent to imidazole ionic liquids can increase the extraction rate, and imidazole ionic liquids containing alcohol-sulfur functional groups have obvious effects on the extraction and separation of many metal ions; ionic liquid extraction and electrodeposition can be combined Alkali metals and alkaline earth metals have been successfully separated; some functionalized ionic liquids are used in industrial wastewater and public sewage to extract heavy metal ions with high efficiency; the ability of ionic liquids to extract transition metal ions is relatively weak and needs to be enhanced by adding other extractants. This article points out the problems with the application status of ionic liquid extraction and separation, and looks forward to its future development direction.