Ionic liquids are attracting a great deal of attention as possible replacement for conventional molecular solvents for catalytic and organic reactions. They complete the use of environmentally friendly water, supercritical fluids or perfluorinated solvents. Features that make ionic liquids attractive include their lack of vapor pressure and the great versatility of their chemical and physical properties. By a judicious combination of cations and anions, it is possible to adjust the solvent properties to the requirement of the reactions, thus creating an almost indefinitely set of "designer solvents". Besides the possibility of recycling the catalytic system, one main potential interest in using ionic liquids results in the unique interactions of these media with the active species and in the possibility to modify the reaction activity and selectivity. Their successful use as solvents has been demonstrated for a wide range of organic reactions including acid catalyzed reactions and transition metal catalyzed transformations. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.