(509a) Room Temperature Ionic Liquid Membrane for Facilitated Transport of CO2

Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (RTILs) are organic salts that are liquids at ambient conditions consisting entirely of ions. RTILs possess a number of unique properties for making stabilized liquid membranes: negligible vapor pressure, high thermal stability, and non-flammability and high ionic conductivity. It is this last property, we exploit in our work to develop an active-facilitated transport membrane, which uses electricity as the driving force. RTIL high ionic conductivity, low vapor pressure, and high thermal stability make them an ideal working fluid in a membrane utilizing an electrochemical process. In our experiment, Electrochemically Modulated Complexation (EMC) transports CO2 through the ionic liquid membrane. EMC is a process that combines a reversible set of redox reactions with absorption/desorption steps to achieve selective separation of gas mixtures. In this paper, we will discuss RTIL system performance in reference to the critical parameters of an EMC system: CO2 solubility and CO2 carrier solubility. Using quinine as a CO2 carrier, we have been able to increase the partial pressure of CO2 from 0.005 atm to 0.85 atm across an initial Prototype liquid membrane. The second-generation membranes will transport CO2 not only against its chemical potential but also against a total gas pressure (i.e. a membrane Compressor)