Assessment of bio-ionic liquids as promising solvents in industrial separation processes: Computational screening using COSMO-RS method

The use of organic solvents in the chemical industry for gas-liquid absorption or liquid-liquid extraction operations is still unavoidable. search “greener” to replace fossil-based counterparts a challenge scientific community. Biocompatible ionic liquids (bio-ILs) emerged as sustainable approach development greener processes. In this work, bio-ILs based on choline common cation are evaluated promising typical industrial separation processes such gas (refrigerants, CO2, H2S, NH3, acetone) and (hydrocarbon separations, denitrogenation, desulfurization, recovery value-added compounds and/or contaminants from aqueous streams) by means COSMO-RS method. Some show competitive behavior compared benchmark ILs all solutes evaluated. None predicted form two liquid phases solutions, so future work should be conducted finding hydrophobic perform these separations. On other hand, hydrocarbon separations results terms selectivities (benzoate-based) partition coefficients (bicarbonate-based) sulfolane previously tested.