(398ag) Molecular Insights on the Reverse-Selectivity Potential of Room Temperature Ionic Liquid Membranes | AIChE

(398ag) Molecular Insights on the Reverse-Selectivity Potential of Room Temperature Ionic Liquid Membranes

Authors 

Khakpay, A. - Presenter, University of Mississippi
Rahmani, F., University of Mississippi
Nouranian, S., University of Mississippi
Scovazzo, P., University of Mississippi
Recently, room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) membranes have attracted attention due to their excellent performance for gas separation applications. In this work, the reverse-selective potential of RTIL membranes has been investigated using molecular dynamics simulation. Since the kinetic diameter of propane (C3H8; 4.30 Å) is larger than that of nitrogen (N2; 3.64 Å) and methane (CH4; 3.80 Å), C3H8/N2 and C3H8/CH4 separations are good indicators of reverse-selectivity. Six imidazolium-based ionic liquids were selected for this study. The pure gas diffusivity, solubility, and permeance were determined for the RTIL membranes and a good agreement was observed for these calculated transport properties with the experimental data. In addition, based on the theoretical findings in this study, gas transport through the RTIL membranes is found to be dominated by solubility rather than diffusivity, which is a requirement for the reverse-selective membranes.