High pressure solubility of CO2 in non-fluorinated phosphonium-based ionic liquids

High pressure solubility of carbon dioxide in three phosphonium-based ionic liquids has been measured experimentally. A synthetic method was used to measure vapor–liquid, vapor–liquid–liquid and liquid–liquid equilibria of carbon dioxide in the ionic liquids trihexyltetradecylphosphonium bromide [thtdp][Br], trihexyltetradecylphosphonium dicyanamide [thtdp][dca] and trihexyltetradecylphosphonium bis(2,4,4-trime-thylpentyl)phosphinate [thtdp][phos] for a temperature range of 271–363 K and up to 90 MPa. Furthermore, the densities and viscosities of these ILs have been measured in a temperature range of 293–363 K. The solubility of carbon dioxide in these ILs is (on mole fraction basis) significantly larger than most of the commonly used fluorinated imidazolium ionic liquids. The latter statement, however, does not hold for the [Br] and [dca] based IL if the solubility is compared on molality (mole/mass solvent) basis, where the solubility differences among physical ILs tends to vanish indicating a strong molecular weight effect. The solubility of carbon dioxide in [thtdp][phos], both on mole fraction and molality basis, is among the highest compared to all the other physical ILs reported so far in the literature. The Peng–Robinson equation of state in combination with Wong–Sandler mixing rules incorporating the NRTL Gibbs excess energy model was applied to represent the experimental data with acceptable accuracy.     

High-pressure phase behavior of carbon dioxide in ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide

Phase equilibrium data of carbon dioxide in the ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([bmim][Tf₂N]) are presented at high pressures up to about 30 MPa and at temperatures between 298.15 K and 343.15 K. The solubilities at a given temperature were determined by measuring the bubble point pressure of the ionic liquid solution with carbon dioxide dissolved using the high-pressure equilibrium apparatus equipped with a variable-volume view cell. Solubility results are reported for carbon dioxide concentrations ranging from 0.21 up to 0.80 mole fraction. Carbon dioxide gave very high solubilities in the ionic liquid at lower pressures, while the equilibrium pressure increased very steeply at higher concentrations of carbon dioxide. The solubility of carbon dioxide in the ionic liquid decreased with an increase in temperature.     

Scott-van Konynenburg phase diagram of carbon dioxide + alkylimidazolium-based ionic liquids

As part of an IUPAC task force, this study was initiated in collaboration with a number of different laboratories throughout the world to help understand the reasons for the discrepancies observed in ionic liquid properties published in literature and to establish an acceptable data bank for the investigated properties of one representative ionic liquid. This study presents experimental high-pressure solubility data of carbon dioxide in the ionic liquid 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide within the temperature range of 280-370 K and pressures up to 14 MPa. The data are compared with those obtained in other laboratories and the differences are not alarming. In addition, a discussion is presented on the carbon dioxide + ionic liquid phase behavior according to the classifications of Scott and van Konynenburg. Such an understanding can greatly help to predict what kinds of phase phenomena may be expected of such systems in regions outside those measured experimentally and can be a very valuable map when designing and optimizing processes involving gases and ionic liquids.     

High pressure phase behavior for the propionitrile and butyronitrile in supercritical carbon dioxide

Pressure-composition isotherms for the (carbon dioxide + propionitrile) and (carbon dioxide + butyronitrile) systems are measured in static-type high pressure apparatus at several temperatures of 313.2, 333.2, 353.2, 373.2 and 393.2 K and at pressures range from 3.5 to 16.7 MPa. The carbon dioxide + nitriles systems have continuous critical mixture (local) curves that exhibit maximums in pressure–temperature space between the critical point of carbon dioxide and monomers (propionitrile or butyronitrile). At a fixed pressure, the solubility of propionitrile or butyronitrile for the two binary systems increases as the temperature increases. The (carbon dioxide + propionitrile) and (carbon dioxide + butyronitrile) systems exhibit type-I phase behavior. The experimental results for the (carbon dioxide + propionitrile) and (carbon dioxide + butyronitrile) systems are correlated with Peng–Robinson equation of state using mixing rule including two adjustable parameters.     

Purification of flue gas by ionic liquids: Carbon monoxide capture in [bmim][Tf2N]

Knowledge of the solubility of carbon monoxide in ionic liquids is important for investigating the potential use of ionic liquids in reactions and gas separations. There is very limited information available on the capacity of ionic liquids to capture CO. The solubility of CO in 1‐butyl‐3‐methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide was investigated experimentally up to temperatures and pressures of 460 K and 10 MPa, respectively. The solubility was shown to be only slightly temperature‐dependent, and the P–T diagram for a constant composition mixture is concave‐downward with a peak in pressure. By comparing the single‐gas solubility results of CO with various other gases in the same ionic liquid, it seems that ionic liquids can potentially be used as gas‐separating media. However, although the single‐gas solubilities vary considerably among some gases, further studies on mixed (multicomponent) gases should be carried out as the presence of other components can influence the solubility of each gas component. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 59: 3886–3891, 2013     

Removal of carbon dioxide from flue gases in packed column using ionic liquids

The study of CO₂ absorption in ionic liquids (ILs): [Emim] [Ac], [Bmim] [Ac] in a packed column is presented. The influence of mass transfer resistances, initial CO₂ concentration, absorption temperature and 2, 5, 10% wt. water addition on CO₂ removal efficiency was investigated. The resistance in series model and estimated values of enhancement factor were used to predict with good accuracy mass fluxes of absorbed carbon dioxide for both ILs. The CO₂ absorption efficiency in packed column depends on temperature and initial CO₂ concentration. The addition of small amounts of water to [Emim][Ac] is of minor effect on CO₂ absorption.     

Correlation and estimation of solubilities of fatty acids in supercritical carbon dioxide using solution model approach

In this study, solid solubility data of five fatty acids in supercritical carbon dioxide (CO₂) at different temperatures and pressures are correlated using a two-parameter solution model developed from the regular solution model coupled with the Flory⿿Huggins equation. The developed solution model with fewer parameters yields correlated results comparable to those from commonly used semi-empirical equations. In addition, both parameters in the solution model can be further generalized with the chain length of fatty acids and a new predictive solution model is proposed for solubility prediction. The predictive solution model proposed in this study provides better predicted results and yields average deviation in predicted solubilities of 22.1%. To further apply this solution model to other compounds, solid solubility data of three triglycerides in supercritical CO₂ at 313 K are also correlated. After model simplification and generalization, a new predictive solution model for triglycerides is also proposed, which yields average deviation in predicted solubilities of 29.8%. These results demonstrate that the solution model used in this study is applicable for correlation and prediction of solid solubilities of structure-related compounds in supercritical CO₂.     

Gas solubilities in ionic liquids using a generic van der Waals equation of state

A family of modified van der Waals equations of state (vdW EOS) is extremely useful for many industrial applications. For example, the generic Redlich-Kwong (RK) EOS or its modification by Soave (SRK EOS) and Peng-Robinson (PR EOS) are still of popular use in industry to the present day. These two most popular (“cubic”) EOSs are based on modifications [1/(V² + bV), or 1/(V² + 2bV − b²)] of the volume dependence on the attractive part of the original van der Waals EOS [1/V²] and also modifications of the temperature dependence of the attractive “a(T)” parameter of the original EOS (constant a). It is extremely rare in actual EOS applications to use the volume dependence of the original van der Waals EOS. In the present phase equilibrium calculations, we employ such a generic vdW EOS, P = RT/(V − b) − a(T)/V², with our well-tested mixing rule for multi-component mixtures. Using the same form of the “a(T)” parameter and the mixing rule, it has been found that all generic RK, PR, and vdW EOSs can present the phase behaviors (temperature-pressure-composition diagrams) equally well. It is shown that experimental gas solubility data (CO₂, CF₃-CFH₂, SO₂, and NH₃) in room-temperature ionic liquids are well correlated with the present EOS model, and also that the phase behaviors such as LLE (liquid-liquid separations) are satisfactorily predicted.     

Addition of carbon dioxide to allyl glycidyl ether using ionic liquids catalysts

The addition of carbon dioxide to allyl glycidyl ether (AGE) was investigated without using any solvent in the presence of ionic liquid as catalyst. Ionic liquids based on 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium (EMIm), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium (BMIm), and 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium (HMIm) with different anions such as Cl⁻, BF₄⁻, PF₆⁻ were used as catalysts. The reaction was performed in a 50 mL stainless steel autoclave. The conversion of allyl glycidyl ether was affected by the structure of imidazolium salt ionic liquids; the one with the cation of bulkier alkyl chain length and with more nucleophilic anion showed better reactivity. Reaction temperature and carbon dioxide pressure enhanced the addition of carbon dioxide to AGE.     

Understanding temperature dependency of hydrogen solubility in ionic liquids,including experimental data in [bmim][Tf2N]

Previously unavailable high‐pressure solubility data of hydrogen in 1‐butyl‐3‐methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)amide has been measured experimentally up to temperatures and pressures of 450 K and 15 MPa, respectively. In contrast to CO₂ solubility, H₂ tends to dissolve better in the ionic liquid at higher temperatures. This “inverse” temperature effect has been studied from a thermodynamic perspective and the underlying reason for this effect is explained. It is shown that the negative P‐T slope is not limited to this particular binary mixture, but is the typical behavior in most, if not all, H₂ + ionic liquid systems. However, there is a certain range of temperatures, pressures, and concentrations in which this phenomenon occurs. By predicting the Scott‐van Konynenburg phase diagram for systems of H₂ + ionic liquids to be of type III, it is shown how and why the solubility increases with temperature in some regions, but decreases in others. © 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2012     

Synthesis of oligomer vinyl acetate with different topologies by RAFT/MADIX method and their phase behaviour in supercritical carbon dioxide

Poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) has been shown to exhibit anomalously high solubility in CO₂ as compared to other vinyl hydrocarbon polymers. Understanding the phase behaviour of PVAc with different topologies in CO₂ is very important for its potential applications as suitable surfactant, or phase transfer agent in a CO₂ solvent process. In this study, a series of PVAcs with different topologies (bi-arms, tri-arms, tetra-arms) were synthesized by RAFT/MADIX method. The structures and molecular weights of these polymers were characterized by ¹H NMR and GPC. The phase behaviours of PVAcs in dense carbon dioxide fluid were determined, and the results show that the PVAc with more arms has lower cloud point pressure.     

Modelling carbon dioxide solubility in ionic liquids

Solubility information for CO₂ in different ionic liquids, ILs, in part can potentially be used to select a specific IL for the separation of CO₂ from hydrocarbon fluids. Unfortunately, not all CO₂–IL systems have been experimentally described at similar temperatures and pressures; therefore, a direct comparison of performance by process simulation is not always possible. In the extreme cases, the design of a CO₂ separation process may require predicting the CO₂–IL equilibria for which there are no available solubility data. To address the need for this information, a semi‐empirical correlation was developed to estimate the dissolution of CO₂ in CO₂–IL solvent systems. The theoretical COSMO–RS calculation method was used to calculate the chemical potential of CO₂ in a wide variety of ILs and the Soave–Redlich–Kwong equation was used to calculate the fugacity coefficient of the CO₂ vapour phase. The model was correlated with available literature data, yielding an average error of AAR = 23% and small bias. © 2012 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering     

Artificial Neural Network modeling of solubility of supercritical carbon dioxide in 24 commonly used ionic liquids

Application of supercritical CO₂ for separation of ionic liquids from their organic solvents or extraction of various solutes from ionic liquid solvents have found great interest during recent years. Knowledge of phase behaviors of the mixtures of supercritical CO₂+ionic liquids is therefore drastic in order to efficiently design such separation processes. In this communication, Artificial Neural Network procedure has been applied to represent the solubility of supercritical CO₂ in 24 mostly used ionic liquids. An optimized Three-Layer Feed Forward Neural Network using critical properties of ionic liquids and operational temperature and pressure has been developed. Application of this model for 1128 data points of 24 ionic liquids show squared correlation coefficients of 0.993 and average absolute deviation of 3.6% from experimental values for calculated/estimated solubilities. The aforementioned deviations show the prediction capability of the presented model.     

An environmentally friendly hydroformylation using carbon dioxide as a reactant catalyzed by immobilized Ru-complex in ionic liquids

A mixed ionic liquid [bmim][Cl + NTf₂] system was successfully used as a reaction medium for Ru-catalyzed hydroformylation of 1-hexene with carbon dioxide in the absence of toxic CO and any volatile organic solvents. The yields and TONs are higher than those reported previously using conventional organic solvents. The product can be readily separated by distillation, and the reaction medium containing the Ru-catalyst was successfully recycled.     

Experimental study of methane and carbon dioxide solubility in 1,4 butylene glycol at pressures up to 11 MPa and temperatures ranging from 303 to 423 K

This work reports solubility data of methane and carbon dioxide in 1,4 butylene glycol and the Henry's law constant of each solute in the studied solvent at saturation pressure. The measurements were performed at 303, 323, 373, 398 and 423.15 K and pressures up to 3.8 MPa for mixtures containing carbon dioxide and pressures up to 10.9 MPa for mixtures containing methane. The experiments were performed in an autoclave type phase equilibrium apparatus using a technique based on the total pressure method (synthetic method). All investigated systems show an increase of gas solubility with the increase of pressure. A decrease of carbon dioxide solubility with the increase of temperature and an increase of methane solubility with the increase of temperature were observed. From the variation of solubility with temperature, the partial molar enthalpy and entropy change of each mixture were calculated.     

Evaluation of density-based models for the solubility of solids in supercritical carbon dioxide and formulation of a new model

Many models have been developed to calculate supercritical solubility behavior and most can be either a semi-empirical relationship or based on an equation of state. In this work, density-based, semi-empirical models were evaluated in terms of their ability to accurately correlate solid solubility in supercritical carbon dioxide. The models considered were the methods of Chrastil, del Valle and Aguilera, Adachi and Lu, Méndez-Santiago and Teja, and Bartle. Six binary systems (solid + supercritical carbon dioxide), each with three isotherms, were selected for this evaluation. The average error was calculated for all 18 isotherms with each of the models evaluated. The solid compounds used in this study were naphthalene, anthracene, fluorene, hydroquinone, 1,5-naphthalenediamine, and cholesterol. The solubility data were obtained from literature. Of the previously mentioned models, the Adachi-Lu and del Valle-Aguilera equations provided, in general, lower average error than the other models. Since the Adachi-Lu equation and the del Valle-Aguilera equation correct for different effects, a new model is proposed in this work as a combination of the previous two methods. The proposed equation provided the least overall average error compared to all other models considered in this study. The new model is particularly useful when the reduced density of the solvent is below 1 where previous models tend to fail. This work also emphasizes on the advantages of expressing density-based models in dimensionless form to avoid dimensional inconsistencies in Chrastil-type models. One of the benefits, for example, is that parameters obtained by different authors can be readily compared, regardless of the units used.     

Phase equilibria of alcohols in supercritical fluids Part II. The effect of side branching on C8 alcohols in supercritical carbon dioxide

This paper is a continuation of a previous study and investigated the phase equilibria of six C₈ alcohols (2,2,4-trimethyl-1-pentanol, 2,4,4-trimethyl-1-pentanol, 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, 2-propyl-1-pentanol, 4-methyl-3-heptanol and 6-methyl-2-heptanol) in supercritical carbon dioxide. Data has been measured between 308 and 348 K for alcohol mass fractions between 0.660 and 0.0162. The results show that the position, size and quantity of side chains have a significant effect on the phase behaviour by changing the shape of the molecule and the effect of the hydroxyl group on the polarity of the molecule. The pressure required for total solubility increases in the following sequence: 4-methyl-3-heptanol < 2,2,4-trimethyl-1-pentanol < 6-methyl-2-heptanol < 2,4,4-trimethyl-1-pentanol < 2-propyl-1-pentanol < 2-ethyl-1-hexanol < 1-octanol. The difference in phase behaviour is believed to be a result of a difference in shielding of the hydroxyl group. Greater shielding of the hydroxyl group results in a less asymmetric system, and this, in turn, results in higher solubility of the molecule.     

Calculation of the solid solubilities in supercritical carbon dioxide using a new G mixing rule

The aim of this study is to develop a new EOS/G^ex-type mixing rule with special attention to calculating the solid solubilities of aromatic hydrocarbons, aliphatic carboxylic acids, aromatic acids, and heavy aliphatic and aromatic alcohols in supercritical carbon dioxide. A volume correction term is applied with a combination of second and third virial coefficients which the equation for the third virial coefficient is quadratic, according to the suggestion by Hall and Iglesias-Silva. In this study, the cubic Peng-Robinson (PR) and Soave-Redlich-Kwong (SRK) equations of state have been used to calculate the solid solubilities of 23 solutes in supercritical CO₂, by using six mixing rules, namely, the Wong-Sandler (WS) rule, the Orbey-Sandler (OS) rule, the van der Waals one fluid rule with one (VDW1) and two (VDW2) adjustable parameters, the covolume dependent (CVD) rule and the new mixing rule. In all cases, the NRTL model was chosen as the excess Gibbs free energy model. The coefficients of the NRTL model and the binary interaction parameters of six mixing rules with two EOSs (PR and SRK EOSs) have been determined for 100 data sets of 23 binary systems over a wide range of temperatures and pressures covering more than 970 experimental data points which are reported in the literature. The results show that the PR EOS with the new mixing rule model is more accurate than the PR and SRK EOSs with the other mixing rules for solid solubility calculations in supercritical carbon dioxide.The regressed interaction parameters of the binary system, without any further modification, were then extended to four ternary mixtures, giving satisfactory results of the solid solubilities in supercritical CO₂.     

Solubility of non-ionic poly(fluorooxetane)-block-(ethylene oxide)-block-(fluorooxetane) surfactants in carbon dioxide

The impact of side chain and midblock length on the solubility of ABA triblock copolymers of fluorooxetane-(ethylene oxide)-fluorooxetane in carbon dioxide is examined. The use of short fluorinated side chains instead of long fluorinated chains prevents issues with bioaccumulation of the degradation products of the surfactant. At 40 °C for the same degree of polymerization, increasing the number of perfluoro-units from one to four results in a non-monotonic change in the cloud point pressure; the cloud point pressure decreases as the side chain is increased from perfluoromethyl to perfluoroethyl. However, further increasing the fluorinated side chain to perfluorobutyl results in a significant increase in the cloud point. However when the temperature is increased to 60 °C, the cloud point pressure for the surfactants with perfluoroethyl and perfluorobutyl side chains is statistically similar, while the perfluoromethyloxetane based surfactant requires a substantially larger pressure to obtain comparable solubility. An increase in cloud point pressure is observed when increasing the hydrophilic ethylene oxide segment. These results illustrate that commercially available fluorooxetane-(ethylene oxide)-fluorooxetane surfactants are highly soluble in CO₂.     

Equilibrium solubilities of a p-toluenesulfonamide and sulfanilamide mixture in supercritical carbon dioxide with and without ethanol

Supercritical separation processes for a multi-component mixture of solutes are of practical interest. In this study, the experimental equilibrium solubilities of two solute mixtures, p-toluenesulfonamide (p-TSA) and sulfanilamide (SNA), in supercritical carbon dioxide (SC CO₂) were measured at temperatures of 308, 318 and 328 K and pressures in the range of 11.0-21.0 MPa using a dynamic flow method. The effect of cosolvent on the multi-component system was investigated by the addition of a 3.5 mol% ethanol. In the ternary system (p-TSA + SNA + CO₂), the solubility of SNA increased as compared to its binary system (SNA + CO₂), while the solubility of p-TSA decreased. In the quaternary system (p-TSA + SNA + ethanol + CO₂), a significant solubility enhancement was observed for both p-TSA and SNA. The selectivity, which is thought to imply the intermolecular interactions between p-TSA and SNA, was also enhanced by the presence of ethanol so that the two solutes could be separated by a max. purity of 99.4%. The influence of the hydrogen bond interaction on solubility was discussed. The equations of Chrastil, Méndez-Santiago and Teja, and their modified forms were used to correlate the experimental data.