An overview of the field of low-melting ionic liquids is given from its inception in 1886 through to the present time. The subject is divided into an introductory section that summarizes the early history of the field, and differentiates its subsections, before addressing matters judged of some interest in "pre-surge" and "post-surge" stages of its development, focusing on physicochemical as opposed to the prolific synthetic and industrial aspects in which the author has no competence. We give a final section specifically to protic ionic liquids, which we consider to have particular scientific potential.

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A rare-earth Pr-based bulk metallic glass (BMG) is obtained in the shape of rod up to 5 mm in diameter by die cast. Unlike other rare-earth-based BMGs, it exhibits a distinct glass transition, the low glass transition temperature (Tg=409 K), a large and stable supercooled liquid region, and paramagnetic property. The glass transition as well as its kinetic nature and the fragility parameters of the BMG have been studied. The BMG offers an ideal model to investigate the nature of glass transition as well as the relaxation and nucleation with a large experimentally accessible time and temperature window at low temperatures.

Simulations and theory suggest that the thermodynamic anomalies of water may be related to a phase transition between two supercooled liquid states, but so far this phase transition has not been observed experimentally because of preemptive ice crystallization. We used calorimetry, infrared spectroscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations to investigate a water-rich hydrazinium trifluoroacetate solution in which the local hydrogen bond structure surrounding a water molecule resembles that in neat water at elevated pressure, but which does not crystallize upon cooling. Instead, this solution underwent a sharp, reversible phase transition between two homogeneous liquid states. The hydrogen-bond structures of these two states are similar to those established for high- and low-density amorphous (HDA and LDA) water. Such structural similarity supports theories that predict a similar sharp transition in pure water under pressure if ice crystallization could be suppressed.