Modelling of ionic liquids’ thermal separation and recycling in biomass fractionation

Abstract

Ionic liquids (ILs) as a fractionating agent have shown promising potentials to offer greener and safer technology with regards to making biomass as feedstock for energy and biochemicals production. Several laboratory-scale experiments have reported fractionating biomass with different types of ILs alongside the procedure for recovering the dissolved biomass fractions and the spent IL. For the sake of economical industrial practice, the most promising type of IL with regards to separability and recyclability in biomass fractionation process must be identified.

In response to this research gap, this thesis seeks to investigate the most promising type of IL via modelling of their thermal separation and recycling. Invoking thermal separation necessitated studying the vapour-liquid equilibrium (VLE) of the chemical components in question. Additionally, some possible process flowsheets were simulated by simplifying the fractionation section while the thermal separation and recycling parts were rigorously modelled.

Based on the energy consumption data from the simulated process flowsheets, the imidazolium-based IL appears to be more economical while the DIL consumes less energy as compared to the SIL.