Polymer-supported ionic liquids: Synthesis, characterization and application in fuel desulfurization

Polymer-supported ionic liquids: Synthesis, characterization and application in fuel desulfurization

Type	Journal Article
Author	Yan Lin
Author	Fang Wang
URL	http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236113007412
Volume	116
Pages	273-280
Publication	Fuel
Date	January 15, 2014
Abstract	Researchers considered ionic liquids (ILs) to be immobilized on solid supports to overcome the problems of the pure ILs in fuel desulfurization. Take Merrifield resin as solid support, four polymer-supported imidazole ionic liquids (PSILs) with varying lengths of alkyl chain linkers were prepared by covalent binding and the structures. Characterization results indicated the series PSILs had been obtained. Researchers then studied the PSILs for removal of thiophene (TS) or dibenzothiophene (DBT) from model gasoline (cyclohexane/TS or DBT) under the following conditions: (1) PSILs showed better sulfur removal ability than Merrifield resin, PS[unmim][BF4] showed the best percent sulfur removal which could up to ⩾30% due to the longest alkyl chain linker and the smallest particles. (2) The sulfur removal selectivity of DBT was better than TS for its higher density aromatic π-electrons. The Sips adsorption isotherms model fitted the adsorption experimental data of PS[unmim][BF4] for TS and DBT at 303.15 K best.