Objective
A key target for the European Chemical industry in order to enhance its competitiveness is to manufacture high value products more efficiently and with significantly reduced environmental impact. In particular, replacing commercial add catalysts (mineral acids, Lewis acids) and organic solvents with non volatile, recyclable alternatives would enhance product quality and significantly reduce effluents in most major sectors e.g. specialities, petrochemicals, solvents, pharmaceuticals and intermediates.
The project aims to introduce, in the EU, technology based on novel, non volatile, recyclable liquids known as 'ionic liquids', as alternatives to acid catalysts and organic solvents currently used widely in all chemical sectors. A definition of an ionic liquid is a non volatile, low melting point molten salt, typically of mixed organic inorganic character (e.g. dialkylimidazolium chloride aluminium chloride) The partners in the consortium have already shown ionic liquids to be very effective acid catalysts and highly efficient solvents. The involatile ionic liquids do not produce vapour emissions, thus reducing levels of VOC's. The impact of ionic liquid catalysts and solvents will be to reduce catalyst/solvent waste inventory and to offer cleaner, low temperature chemical processing routes than are currently possible.
The most advanced industrial applications of ionic liquids to date are at bench scale in the catalyst sector. For example, in tests for benzene alkylation with olefins (C5 8), ionic liquid catalyst was more active than sulfuric acid (46 % versus 25 % benzene conversion), gave higher selectivity to desired monoalkylated product (95 % versus 78 % molar selectivity) and was almost completely recyclable (99.5 % recyclable). Similarly, ionic liquid catalysed the acylation of chlorobenzene with 100 % conversion and 99 % selectivity to the para product at 0 C within 30 minutes in batch tests. Other preliminary research suggests that ionic liquids are excellent solvents in which highly efficient polymer processing is possible. It is expected that ionic liquids will revolutionise chemical processing, particularly for aromatics processing (e.g the catalytic production of Linear Alkyl Benzenes (LABs), a potential market of 380 million tonnes per annum, worth 15,000 MECU in the EU).
The consortium combines the resources of 3 major industrial companies, essential for the rapid development and exploitation of ionic liquid technology, an SME industrial partner with considerable expertise in reagent manufacture, and 3 world class centres of academic expertise in ionic liquids technology and catalysis. The proposed project would make the EU the world leader in this rapidly emerging new catalyst and solvent technology, and is expected to contribute significantly in enhancing the competitiveness of the European chemical industry in the face of growing competition from the Far East. The project fits well within the Targeted Research Area no 1 (1.2).
The project objectives are to demonstrate at pilot scale the following:
Manufacturing routes to ionic liquids (5 litre scale). Effcient, cost effective routes to both intermediates and selected ionic liquids wiil be developed. In particular, the manufacture of known
chloroaluminate ionic liquids will be optimised.
The use of ionic liquids as catalysts for aromatics alkylation reactions, showing better conversion (> 90 %), selectivity (> 95 %) and recyciability (> 99.5 %) than existing catalysts. For example, the alkylation of benzene with C8 16 olefins to produce Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) detergent intermediates, a potential market of 380 million tonnes per annum, worth 15,000 MECU in the EU alone.
The use of ionic liquids as catalysts for producing Fine Chemicals intermediates, showing better efficiency and recyclability (as dehned above) than existing catalysts, and offering new low temperature routes for processing thermally fragile molecules. A typical reaction will be the acylation of aromatic molecules (e.g. chlorobenzene) with acetyl chloride to produce specific isomeric products (para
substituted product).
To reach full commercial demonstration for a given application, a timescale of 2 5 years is expected. For this reason, the proposed project should be regarded as pre competitive.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugs
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciences
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrypost-transition metals
- natural scienceschemical sciencescatalysis
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Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
TW16 7LN Sunbury on Thames
United Kingdom