Guide to CO 2 Separations in Imidazolium-Based Room-Temperature Ionic Liquids

Room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) are nonvolatile, tunable solvents that have generated significant interest across a wide variety of engineering applications. The use of RTILs as media for CO2 separations appears especially promising, with imidazolium-based salts at the center of this research effort. The solubilities of gases, particularly CO2, N2, and CH4, have been studied in a number of RTILs. Process temperature and the chemical structures of the cation and anion have significant impacts on gas solubility and gas pair selectivity. Models based on regular solution theory and group contributions are useful to predict and explain CO2 solubility and selectivity in imidazolium-based RTILs. In addition to…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• NR
  National Research Council Canada
• AR
  Army Research Office