Liquid-Liquid Extraction of Naphthenic Acid Using Thiocyanate Based Ionic Liquids

In this work the de-acidification of dodecane was investigated using [DBU] based ionic liquid with thiocyanate [SCN] anion. The liquid-liquid equilibrium data for ternary mixture of {dodecane + naphthenic acid + [DBU-Hex][SCN]} were experimentally determined at a constant temperature and pressure. The ternary diagram shows that all the tie lines have a positive slope at all concentration of naphthenic acid, thus indicating that the ionic liquid is enough for the de-acidification of dodecane. The liquid-liquid equilibrium data was correlated using non-random two liquid (NRTL) model. An extremely good fit was obtained for all the tie lines using the NRTL model.