Leaching Of Ionic Liquid From A Fixed Bed

The effect of hydrocarbon solvent, operating temperature and solid support on the
leaching of supported ionic liquid phase is studied in this research project. Supported
ionic liquid phase catalysis has already been applied in gas phase applications
because to its stability, its application in liquid phase however requires coordination
of the ionic liquid and reactants to avoid leaching. Leaching causes contamination of
the product phase causing an increase in costs due to product purification and
catalyst deactivation which is caused by cross solubility and mechanical removal. To
adhere to the given project timeline and to make the project feasible only a certain
number of variables are tested. The tested variable includes three types of
hydrocarbon solvent, which are n-heptane, n-dodecane and toluene. The temperature
at which the experiment is conducted is also manipulated at 25°C, 35°C, 45°C. The
experiment was conducted in a batch operated method where hydrocarbon solvent is
flowed from a reservoir to a glass column containing a constant amount of supported
ionic liquid phase. Water is then washed with the hydrocarbon and analysed using
the conductivity meter and atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The results showed
that aromatics cause more leaching than n-alkanes. For n-alkane, varying operating
temperature had a negligible effect on leaching.