Porous liquids: current trends and investigation techniques

Porous liquids (PLs) represent a relatively new type of fluid media promising for many applications. Their intrinsic heterogeneous structure on microscopic scale is the core of unusual physicochemical and functional properties of PLs. Although PLs emerged at the interface of other well-developed fields of chemistry and materials science, their unique properties welcome the development of new specific experimental approaches to characterize structure and functions of PLs, as well as their stability. In this focus article we briefly overview major current trends in the design and development of PLs and discuss relevant methods of their investigation, with a particular emphasis on recent applications of Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy in this emerging field.