Synthesis and Characterization of Deep Eutectic Solvents (DESs)

It is broadly known that carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the major greenhouse
gas (GHG) contributors. There have been many researches and studies conducted in
order to come up with the most effective method for CO2 capture. For this project,
variety of new DESs is being synthesized and the prepared DESs are chosen based
on the structure of salts and the HBD. Materials selected for this project are
potassium carbonate, sodium acetate as salt, ethylene glycol, and levulinic acid as
hydrogen bond donor (HBD).
This project is an experimental based project and the time period given, the
experimental work covers the physical properties analysis which consists of
determination of the freezing point, density, viscosity, and refractive index over
different pressure, temperature and molar ratio of the mixtures. Densities, viscosities
and refractive index of sample formed decrease with an increase of temperature and
an increase of HBD content. The temperature dependence of densities and refractive
indexes for sample are correlated by an empirical linear function, and the viscosities
are fitted using Vogel-Tamman-Flucher (VTF) equation. In this project, Peng-
Robinson (PR) Equation of State (EoS) is used to measure the solubility of CO2. The
CO2 solubility of the studied DESs increases as the pressure and HBD content
increases.