Applications of ionic liquids in the removal of contaminants from refinery feedstocks: an industrial perspective

Abstract

Ionic liquids are novel, green and efficient compounds for the removal of contaminants from refinery feedstocks.

Ionic Liquids as Surfactants – Applications as Demulsifiers of Petroleum Emulsions

“…In petroleum industry, ILs have found wide applications as corrosion inhibitors [14,47], as inhibitors of asphaltene precipitation [48] and for removing pollutants from refineries feedstocks [13].…”

“…Since they have a very low vapor pressure, thermal stability and non-flammability, they have been considered as "green, ecofriendly chemicals" [11]. ILs have found a variety of applications in the oil industry, such as pollutant removal, corrosion inhibitors and viscosity reducers [12][13][14]. ILs have found also wide applications as surfactants [15][16], and recently the application of ILs as demulsifiers for both W/O and O/W in petroleum industry have been described [17][18][19].…”

Surface tensions of ionic liquids: Non-regular trend along the number of cyano groups

“…As a result of their tailoring ability and unique properties, ILs have been studied for various application, such as lubricants [7], gas storage media [8,9], solvents in multiphasic homogeneous catalytic reactions [5,10], solvent media and catalysts in heterogeneous reactions [11], extraction solvents of compounds of biotechnological and analytical interest [12,13], potential solvents in extractive distillation processes to separate water-ethanol mixtures [14], enhanced candidates to dissolve and process biomass [15], among many other exploratory purposes. Notwithstanding their academic interest, ILs have caught the industry interest and are currently being used in some industrial processes and products [16,17].…”

Total Acid Number Reduction of Naphthenic Acids Using Supercritical Fluid and Ionic Liquids

“…All of them had a positive efect on the acid removal rate except the reagent/oil ratio which had a negative efect on the oil yield rate. The same approach was employed by Baden Aniline and Sida Factory (BASF), the largest Ludwigshafen, Germany based chemical company in the world to develop the irst successful large-scale industrial application of ILs in 2003 [81] through the process biphasic acid scavenging ILs (BASIL). In this process, they are using N-alkylimidazole derivative to scavenge acid that is formed in the alkoxyphenylphosphines production process as a by-product forming ILs.…”

“…In general, they are characterized to have low vapor pressure, thermal and chemical stability and non-lammability. The research areas on ILs are growing very rapidly and it has numerous potential applications, such as, microwaveassisted organic synthesis, catalysis, biocatalysis, separation, extraction, electrochemistry, nanomaterials synthesis, polymerization reactions and corrosion inhibitors [81]. ILs can also …”