The large pool of naturally occurring carbohydrates with their diversity in chirality and structure led to the idea of a systematic investigation of carbohydrate based ILs.

Carbohydrate based ionic liquids (CHILs) are a sub‐class of ionic liquids which first emerged in 2007 and has since then attracted a steadily growing community of organic chemists. Since carbohydrates are naturally occurring materials with a broad spectrum of diastereomers, they are fitting materials for ionic liquids bearing stereochemical information. This review gives an up‐to‐date overview of all CHILs and their applications in asymmetric chemistry.

This work presents the synthesis of glucose-based vinyl imidazolium monomers and the hydrogels produced thereof. These novel semisynthetic, cationic hydrogels were prepared by radical polymerization with different types of commercial cross-linkers such as N,N'-methylenebis(acrylamide) or poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate. Both the type and the amount of cross-linker were investigated as influencing factors with respect to the swelling degree. It was found that the cross-linker type majorly influences the swelling degree and long-term stability of the hydrogels. Last, the influence of different anions (e.g., halogens, acetate, and triflate) in the monomer molecule on the swelling properties of the hydrogels was investigated.