Removal of Benzothiophene from Dodecane Crude Oil Model using Butylmethylimidazolium Dibutylphosphate ionic liquid

Ionic liquids are well-known as green solvent. Besides that, it is also have many
special criterion that inspired researcher to do deep research on the ability of ionic
liquids in extracting sulfur compounds from crude oil. Instead, problems occur at
plant due to the lack performance of current technology in extracting aromatic sulfur
compounds which is hydrodesulfurization (HDS) make all the effort become more
concentrated. Hence, the aim of this project is to find the best method of extraction
by using ionic liquids. After going through related literatures, methods and
procedures of experiment were proposed. To make the study more interesting, this
research started with synthesis of ionic liquid which is [BMIM][DBP]. It is followed
by the characterization of ionic liquids in order to confirm that ionic liquid has been
synthesized successfully. An alternative to crude oil, dodecane is used as model oil.
After synthesis, extraction and oxidation of Benzothiophene (BT) were conducted.
The result shows that, [BMIM][DBP] can extract BT from dodecane model oil from
6% up to 54%. As a conclusion, the ionic liquid showed the successful in extracting
sulfur compounds from crude oil model.