Trends offered by ionic liquid-based surfactants: Applications in stabilization, separation processes, and within the petroleum industry

ABSTRACT

Ionic liquid (IL)-based surfactants exhibit prominent properties in adsorption and aggregation, providing strong influence on interfacial properties of phases. This review overviews the main characteristics of IL-based surfactants and their versatility in different processes particularly those dealing with the stabilization of immiscible liquids and solids for the aim of producing microemulsions and micelles. Applications in separation processes for chromatographic and extraction techniques and in the petroleum industry for augmenting the oil recovery, separation of asphaltene and paraffin deposits and crude oil separation are precisely studied by describing the mechanisms as well as qualitative and quantitative comparison to conventional surfactants everywhere relevant. These are particularly highlighted with respect to the importance of selecting/tailoring the desired IL-based surfactants in relation to the influence of operating parameters. Moreover, challenges and directions of the future outlooks on specific topics are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• ionic liquid-based surfactant
• Ionic liquid
• surfactant
• stabilization
• separation processes
• petroleum industry

Acknowledgments

J.S. and M.K. thank the Bu-Ali Sina University authorities and the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF), for supporting this study under Grant number 99031559. V.P. thanks the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) for the project MAT2017-89207-R, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) for the project PID2020-115004RB-I00, and the Canary Agency of Research and Innovation (ACIISI), co-funded by the European Social Fund, for the project ProID2020010089.

Abbreviations

Table

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información [ProID2020010089]; Iran National Science Foundation [99031559]; Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [MAT2017-89207-R]; Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [PID2020-115004RB-I00].