Adsorption of ionic liquids from aqueous effluents by activated carbon

The separation of imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs) from aqueous solution by adsorption has been investigated using a commercial activated carbon (AC) as adsorbent. Equilibrium experiments were carried out for obtaining the adsorption isotherms of ILs on AC at different temperatures. The influence of both cation and anion was analyzed by studying 17 different ILs. The role of the surface chemistry of the adsorbent was also examined using ACs modified by oxidative and thermal treatments. The incorporation of IL on the AC surface was studied by N2 adsorption–desorption measurements and elemental analysis. In addition to this, a COSMO-RS computational approach was developed to estimate molecular and thermodynamic properties of the solvent–adsorbate–adsorbent system, which allowed us to analyze the adsorption mechanism from a molecular point of view. The results of this work indicate that the adsorption with AC is an affordable environmental application to remove hydrophobic ILs from water streams, proposing the use of acetone for adsorbent regeneration. It has also been demonstrated that the adsorption of refractory hydrophilic ILs can be improved by modifying the amount and nature of oxygen groups on the AC surface, particularly by including hydroxyl groups to promote hydrogen-bonding interactions with the basic groups of hydrophilic ILs.