“…The advantage of using them is that the separation process is carried out in one step (unit process) and no toxic organic solvents are used because in PIMs both the extraction and back extraction processes occur simultaneously. For example, PIMs are successfully used in the recovery and separation of such metals as Cu [8,9], Co [10,11], Ni [10,12,13], Zn [12,[14][15][16], Pb [12,17,18], Cd [10,12,19], Hg [20,21], Cr(III) [12,22], Cr(VI) [23], Mn [12], As [12,24], Fe [12], U [12,25], Ag [26,27], Au [28], as well as platinum group metals [29,30], lanthanides, and actinides [12,31,32].…”