Application of ionic liquids in olefin/paraffin separation

Separation of olefin/paraffin is one of the vital important processes in chemical industry. The traditional cryogenic distillation usually exhibits low selectivity and high energy consumption. As the green solvents, ionic liquids (ILs) have tunable structures and high olefin solubility, which provide a novel route for efficient and energy-saving separation of olefin/paraffin. In this paper, the recent advances on ILs for the separation of olefin/paraffin were summarized. The separation performances of conventional ILs, functionalized ILs and silver-based ILs were emphasized and the effects of cations, anions, functional groups and mental ions on separation performance were discussed. The characteristics of three ways that introducing transition metals into ionic liquids, as well as the influence of the proportion of transition metals and the types of organic ligands on the separation performance of ionic liquids were emphatically introduced. Meantime, the future research challenges and perspectives of ILs in olefin/paraffin separation have been also posed. © 2019, Chemical Industry Press. All right reserved.