Book excerpt: The book starts with an exposition of the relevant properties of ions and continues with a description of their solvation in the gas phase. The book contains a large amount of factual information in the form of extensive tables of critically examined data and illustrations of the points made throughout. It covers: the relevant properties of prospective liquid solvents for the ions the process of the transfer of ions from the gas phase into a liquid where they are solvated various aspects of the solutions of the ions, such as structural and transport ones and the effects of the ions on the solvent dynamics and structure what happens in cases where the solvent is a mixture selective solvation takes place applications of the concepts expounded previously in fields such as electrochemistry, hydrometallurgy, separation chemistry, biophysics, and synthetic methods