The present inventions relate to novel ionic liquids comprising a Lewis
acid anion such as Al.sub.yR.sub.3y+1 wherein y is greater than 0 and R
is independently selected from the group consisting of an alkyl group and
halogen group. The cation of the ionic liquids can be selected from
ammonium, sulfonium, and phosphonium cations wherein said cation
generally has less than 14 total carbon atoms. The anion may contain an
organic bridge to bond neighboring aluminum atoms that would otherwise be
susceptible to leaching aluminum trichloride. The ionic liquids are
useful in many applications and particularly as catalysts.