It is shown that pristine fullerene C-70 can be solubilised in imidazolium, ammonium and phosphonium based ionic liquids (ILs) bearing long alkyl chains (C-8 or higher). The absorption and fluorescence properties are similar to those displayed in conventional polar solvents except in ILs containing chloride as the counter ion, which completely quench the fluorescence of C-70. Fluorescence decay analysis using a sum of Becquerel functions to account for the complex decay of background emission allows the successful recovery of the solute's lifetime. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.