Ionic liquids as benign solvents for the extraction of aromatics

Ionic liquids (ILs) have been extensively investigated as promising alternatives to conventional organic solvents such as sulfolane and N,N-dimethylformamide for the selective extraction of aromatic hydrocarbons from the C ₆-C ₁₀ hydrocarbon mixtures produced from the cracking processes of naphtha and light oils. The most important advantage of ILs over conventional organic solvents is that they are immiscible with aliphatic hydrocarbons, and thus the back extraction of ILs from the raffinate phases and top hydrocarbon-rich layers is not necessary. In this paper, a brief review on the state of the art in the utilization of ILs for aromatics separation is presented.