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Densities and viscosities for N-formylmorpholine (NFM) with benzene and toluene were determined over several temperatures at atmospheric pressure. The measurements were carried out over the whole r...

It is known that the use of natural gas as a vehicular fuel is advantageous; however, the drawback of this application is the storage limitations of natural gas. One method for storing natural gas at moderate temperatures and pressures is to dissolve it in organic mixtures. In this paper, an apparatus for measuring gas solubility in liquids under high pressures was used. The solubilities of methane in methanol + n-hexane, methanol + n-heptane, and methanol + cyclohexane at 303.15 K and in methanol + benzene and methanol + methylbenzene at 288.15 K and 303.15 K were measured. The experimental pressures are up to 12.0 MPa. The new solubility measurements are believed to have uncertainties of 0.002 (mole fraction). Meanwhile, the molar volumes of liquid-phase mixtures at high pressures were determined and well-estimated by the Aalto−Keskinen model. Because of the polarity of methanol, the PRSV equation of state with the Huron−Vidal mixing rule was used to estimate the equilibrium data for methane + methanol ...

In this paper, an apparatus used to measure the surface tension at high temperature and elevated pressure was developed, based on the differential maximum bubble pressure method. As standard solvents, the surface tensions of methanol, ethanol, and benzyl benzoate were measured over a range of temperatures and pressures. The results were compared with the literature values, and the relative uncertainty of measurement is less than 2 %. The surface tensions of benzene, toluene, p-, o-, m-xylene, and the binary mixture of p-xylene + benzene were measured at 1.6 MPa, from (80 to 200) °C

Octanol/water partition coefficients Kow of 10 kinds of selected halogen benzoic acids were determined for the first time using the shake-flask method. Then, a set of group values and factors used to estimate the Kow of halogen benzoic acids were obtained. For estimation of the Kow of the selected compounds, the average absolute error of log Kow is 0.15, and the average relative error of Kow is 39 %.

The aquatic toxicity value of hazardous contaminants plays an important role in the risk assessments of aquatic ecosystems. The following study presents a stable and accurate structure-toxicity relationship model based on the norm indexes for the prediction of toxicity value (log(LC50)) for 190 diverse narcotic pollutants (96 h LC50 data for Poecilia reticulata). Research indicates that this new model is very efficient and provides satisfactory results. The suggested prediction model is evidenced by R(2) (square correlation coefficient) and ARD (average relative difference) values of 0.9376 and 10.45%, respectively, for the training set, and 0.9264 and 13.90% for the testing set. Comparison results with reference models demonstrate that this new method, based on the norm indexes proposed in this work, results in significant improvements, both in accuracy and stability for predicting aquatic toxicity values of narcotic pollutants.

The conversion of cellulose into valuable chemicals to deal with the depletion of fossil fuel has got much attention. Completing the hydrolysis of cellulose under mild conditions is the key step. In this study, six kinds of SO(3)H-functionalized acidic ionic liquids were used as acid catalyst to promote the hydrolysis of cellulose in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([BMIM]Cl). All of them were efficient for the hydrolysis of cellulose, with the maximum total reducing sugars (TRS) yields over 83% at 100 °C. Acidic ionic liquids with analogous structures showed similar catalytic activities. Triethyl-(3-sulfo-propyl)-ammonium hydrogen sulfate (IL-5 in this study) was the optimum ionic liquid for cellulose hydrolysis, with the maximum TRS yield at 100 °C up to 99% when the dosage used was 0.2g. In addition, the water in [BMIM]Cl had negative effect on cellulose hydrolysis. Therefore, controlling the content of water in a comparatively low level is quite necessary.

The efficient conversion of lignocellulosic materials into fuel ethanol has become a research priority in producing affordable and renewable energy. The pretreatment of lignocelluloses is known to be key to the fast enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose. Recently, certain ionic liquids (ILs) were found capable of dissolving more than 10wt% cellulose. Preliminary investigations [Dadi, A.P., Varanasi, S., Schall, C.A., 2006. Enhancement of cellulose saccharification kinetics using an ionic liquid pretreatment step. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 95, 904-910; Liu, L., Chen, H., 2006. Enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose materials treated with ionic liquid [BMIM]Cl. Chin. Sci. Bull. 51, 2432-2436; Dadi, A.P., Schall, C.A., Varanasi, S., 2007. Mitigation of cellulose recalcitrance to enzymatic hydrolysis by ionic liquid pretreatment. Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol. 137-140, 407-421] suggest that celluloses regenerated from IL solutions are subject to faster saccharification than untreated substrates. These encouraging results offer the possibility of using ILs as alternative and non-volatile solvents for cellulose pretreatment. However, these studies are limited to two chloride-based ILs: (a) 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([BMIM]Cl), which is a corrosive, toxic and extremely hygroscopic solid (m.p. approximately 70 degrees C), and (b) 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([AMIM]Cl), which is viscous and has a reactive side-chain. Therefore, more in-depth research involving other ILs is much needed to explore this promising pretreatment route. For this reason, we studied a number of chloride- and acetate-based ILs for cellulose regeneration, including several ILs newly developed in our laboratory. This will enable us to select inexpensive, efficient and environmentally benign solvents for processing cellulosic biomass. Our data confirm that all regenerated celluloses are less crystalline (58-75% lower) and more accessible to cellulase (>2 times) than untreated substrates. As a result, regenerated Avicel((R)) cellulose, filter paper and cotton were hydrolyzed 2-10 times faster than the respective untreated celluloses. A complete hydrolysis of Avicel((R)) cellulose could be achieved in 6h given the Trichoderma reesei cellulase/substrate ratio (w/w) of 3:20 at 50 degrees C. In addition, we observed that cellulase is more thermally stable (up to 60 degrees C) in the presence of regenerated cellulose. Furthermore, our systematic studies suggest that the presence of various ILs during the hydrolysis induced different degrees of cellulase inactivation. Therefore, a thorough removal of IL residues after cellulose regeneration is highly recommended, and a systematic investigation on this subject is much needed.

This review summarizes recent applications of ionic liquids (ILs) as ‘green’ solvents in extractions of a variety of substances, including metal ions, organic and bio-molecules, organosulfur from fuels, and gases. ILs could also be used along with another ‘green’ technology, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE), for a more effective separation of products from ILs. In addition to their environmentally-benign feature, ILs have other favorable properties over organic solvents used for extraction, such as adjustable hydrophobicity, polarity and selectivity. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry

Ionic liquids (ILs) have proven effective solvents for pretreating lignocellulose, leading to the fast saccharification of cellulose and hemicellulose. However, the high current cost of most ILs remains a major barrier to commercializing this recent approach at a practical scale. As a strategic detour, aqueous solutions of ILs are also being explored as less costly alternatives to neat ILs for cellulose pretreatment. However, limited studies on a few select IL systems are known and there remains no systematic survey of various ILs, eluding an in-depth understanding of pretreatment mechanisms afforded by aqueous IL systems. As a step toward filling this gap, this study presents results for Avicel cellulose pretreatment by neat and aqueous solutions (1.0 and 2.0 M) of 20 different ILs and three deep eutectic solvents, correlating enzymatic hydrolysis rates of pretreated cellulose with various IL properties such as hydrogen-bond basicity, polarity, Hofmeister ranking, and hydrophobicity. The pretreatment efficiencies of neat ILs may be loosely correlated to the hydrogen-bond basicity of the constituent anion and IL polarity; however, the pretreatment efficacies for aqueous ILs are more complicated and cannot be simply related to any single IL property. Several aqueous IL systems have been identified as effective alternatives to neat ILs in lignocellulose pretreatment. In particular, this study reveals that aqueous solutions of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium methanesulfonate ([BMIM][MeSO3]) are effective for pretreating switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), resulting in fast saccharification of both cellulose and hemicellulose. An integrated analysis afforded by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and cellulase adsorption isotherm of lignocellulose samples is further used to deliver a more complete view of the structural changes attending aqueous IL pretreatment.